Lebanese politicians fail to elect president for 12th time


Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, right, casts his vote as parliament gathers to elect a president at the parliament building in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, June 14, 2023.

LEBANESE politicians failed another attempt to elect a president today and break a seven-month power vacuum that has roiled the Mediterranean country.

The session — the twelfth bid to pick a president — broke down after the bloc led by the powerful political party and militant group Hezbollah withdrew following the first round of voting, breaking the quorum.

Hezbollah’s preferred candidate, Sleiman Frangieh, the scion of a political family close to the ruling Assad family in Syria, trailed behind his main rival, Jihad Azour, a former finance minister and senior official with the International Monetary Fund, in the first round of voting.

Mr Azour, who is supported by the opposition to Hezbollah and some of its nominal allies, received 59 votes to 51 for Mr Frangieh, while 18 lawmakers cast blank ballots, protest votes or voted for minority candidates.

However, Mr Azour failed to reach the two-thirds majority needed to win in the first round.

The meeting came after 11 previous sessions by the parliament, the last of which was held in January, failed to elect a replacement for President Michel Aoun, a Hezbollah ally, whose term ended in late October.

Mr Azour has the backing of the country’s largest Christian political parties, the Free Patriotic Movement, which has been allied with Hezbollah since 2006, and the Lebanese Forces party, an opponent to Hezbollah.

Under Lebanon’s complex power-sharing agreement, the country’s president has to be a Maronite Christian, the parliament speaker a Shi’ite Muslim and the prime minister a Sunni.