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As Lebanon sinks further into acute economic crisis, President Michel Aoun’s term of office approaches its end on October 31. Parliament members began the process of electing his successor on September 29. The political tug-of-war over this post, reserved for a member of the Maronite Christian community, is expected to be lengthy. During the last presidential election, Lebanon went without a president for 29 months.
The series of bank robberies by Lebanese citizens hoping to recover their own savings, which have been frozen for the past three years, attracted much foreign media attention in recent weeks and overshadowed the presidential election currently underway in Lebanon.
As the six-year non-renewable term of the current president, former general Michel Aoun ends on October 31, the process to replace him began on September 29 in parliament, whose 128 MPs have the constitutional power to elect the head of state. Voting is by secret ballot and the president of the republic is elected by a two-thirds majority in the first round and by an absolute majority in subsequent rounds.
Unsurprisingly, the first parliamentary session was not a success. No consensus has yet been found on who should be Aoun’s successor due to the divisions within the political class. Parliament is so polarised that it can’t even agree on the need to form a new government to replace the one currently led by incumbent Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who has been in charge of current affairs since May, when the new parliament’s mandate began.
A ‘purely formal’ exercise
The majority of the 122 votes cast on September 29 were blank, while Michel Moawad – a Maronite MP and the son of former President René Moawad, who was assassinated in 1989 – received 36 votes.
One vote was cast in…
Source : france24
