Lebanon’s parliament failed to elect a president for the twelfth time on Wednesday, with the tussle between the powerful pro-Iranian Hezbollah and its opponents heightening the risk of a prolonged vacancy in the country.
In full economic collapse, Lebanon has been without a president for more than seven months and led by a resigning government with reduced powers.
Parliament has 128 deputies and neither side has a clear majority. On Wednesday, neither a former minister supported by the Shiite Hezbollah movement nor an economist supported by his opponents obtained the required number of votes (86) to be elected in the first round.
Jihad Azour, an official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), had 59 votes against 51 votes for his competitor, former minister Suleiman Frangié.
A second round could not then be organized because the deputies of Hezbollah and its allies, supporting Mr. Frangié, left the hemicycle to prevent the quorum from being met for its holding.
Parliamentarians from Hezbollah and its allies had already resorted to the same tactic in previous sessions. The party dominates political life and has a powerful armed wing.
At the end of the session, the head of parliament, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, called on the deputies to “stop accusing each other of the extension of the power vacuum”.
He felt that it was necessary “to speed up the election of a president, which can only be done through understanding and dialogue”, but did not set a date for a new meeting.
Mr. Azour, who suspended his mission to the IMF to lead his campaign, said on Monday that he wanted to “contribute to a solution and not be a factor of crisis”.
Former Minister of Finance (2005-2008), he assured that his candidacy did not constitute “a challenge for anyone”, in response to Hezbollah who described him as a “confrontational” and “challenging” candidate.
A first candidate supported by the opponents of Hezbollah, the deputy Michel Moawad, had already been qualified as such by the Shiite formation, before withdrawing last week in favor of Mr. Azour.
Mr. Frangié, whose grandfather was president of Lebanon, for his part promised on Sunday to be “the president of all Lebanese”, despite his alliance with Hezbollah and the friendship that binds him to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Under the confessional power-sharing system, the presidency of Lebanon is reserved for a Maronite Christian.
Faced with this blockage and “in the absence of significant international pressure”, the most likely is that the country will enter a “prolonged period of vacation” which could last several months, estimates analyst Karim Bitar.
The daily Al-Akhar, close to Hezbollah, headlined Wednesday on its entire front page: “The void”.
During the last presidential election, the Hezbollah camp had paralyzed the action of Parliament for more than two years to impose the election of Michel Aoun, its ally, in 2016.
In the past, MPs often waited for directives from their various foreign “sponsors” before voting.
Former mandatory power, France must dispatch to Beirut the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, appointed “personal envoy for Lebanon” of President Emmanuel Macron.
Paris on Tuesday called on Lebanese officials to “take seriously” the parliamentary session and “make it an opportunity to end the crisis”.
Washington also urged the Lebanese parliament “to finish the job” and elect a new president.
The Lebanese “urgently need a president who can initiate reforms and unlock IMF support. To do this, the parliament must continue to organize sessions in the coming days and weeks to finish the job”, said Wednesday State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the press.
For Karim Bitar, the impasse could lead to “negotiations that would lead to a solution around a third man, and an election decided in advance, like most other elections in the history of Lebanon”.
14/06/2023 21:01:12 – Beirut (AFP) © 2023 AFP