Lebanon: President election fails, country in chaos
On Thursday, the Lebanese Parliament failed to elect a new president for the eighth consecutive time , as the parliamentary majority cannot agree on any of the candidates
In Thursday's first round of voting, 111 votes were cast in the 128-seat parliament, with 52 lawmakers casting a blank ballot, while 37 voted in favor of Michel Moawad, son of late President René Moawad.
The 37 votes cast in favor of Moawad are a decrease from last week's session, when 42 lawmakers voted for the candidate, supported by the anti-Hezbollah bloc of the Lebanese Forces (LF), Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), by the Kataeb party and some "independent" lawmakers. Some deputies even wrote down bogus names, with a vote cast for Brazil's socialist president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. After the voting session, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced that the ninth attempt at the election would be held next week.
The Lebanese presidency, reserved for the country's Maronite Christian religion since the National Pact of 1943, has been empty since the end of Michel Aoun's mandate in September, after six years in power. Hezbollah's "Loyalty to the Resistance" party, along with its allies the Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), oppose Moawad's candidacy. Hezbollah lawmakers, in particular, have argued that their preferred presidential candidate is the leader of the Marada Movement, Suleiman Frangieh.
An attempt was then made to elect a candidate who was at least compatible with the entire bloc close to Hezbollah, but parties close to the United States and the Saudis, such as the LF, opposed it. Christian political leader Samir Geagea said earlier this week that "dialogue with [Hezbollah and its allies] is a waste of time." In response to this divisive stance, PSP leader Walid Jumblat called Geagea's remarks "absurd" and said that "talking to all parties is necessary to elect a new president".
According to Article 49 of the Lebanese Constitution, a presidential candidate is elected by winning a two-thirds majority of Parliament in the first ballot – 86 members, the same number required for the legal quorum – or by a simple majority of 65 votes in subsequent rounds. .
So far, no candidate has been able to secure the support of enough lawmakers, either in the first or subsequent rounds of voting. Former President Aoun's 2016 election came after more than two years of vacuum at the presidential palace, as lawmakers made 45 failed attempts before reaching a consensus on his candidacy.
Further muddying the waters, the United States, France, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have all expressed a desire to see Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) commander Joseph Aoun nominated as the new president of Lebanon.
Since 2019, the Levantine nation has been facing what the World Bank describes as the worst economic crisis in 150 years, caused by rampant corruption in the financial sector. A prolonged power vacuum would only exacerbate the situation, as Beirut is currently unable to implement the sweeping reforms demanded by international lenders as a condition for the issuance of billions of dollars in loans.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf warned at a Nov. 4 forum at the Wilson Center that the current situation in Lebanon could lead to a "complete disintegration of the and the collapse of its security forces.”
Leaf added that as the crisis becomes more unsustainable, he expects Lebanese lawmakers to pack up and leave for Europe, abandoning the country as "unsalvageable." “We are pressuring political leaders to do their job, but nothing is as effective as popular pressure. Sooner or later, people will rise up,” Leaf pointed out.
He added that the collapse will allow Lebanon "to somehow be rebuilt from the ashes, freed from the curse of Hezbollah". The US official concluded that the United States and Saudi Arabia share the same vision for Lebanon and are cooperating to achieve it, admitting that they are behind a strategy that aims, objectively, to lead to chaos.
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The article Lebanon: the election of the president fails, a country in chaos comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/libano-fallisce-lelezione-del-presidente-paese-nel-caos/ on Fri, 02 Dec 2022 09:13:38 +0000.