Brussels: Europe and the Arabs
Tomorrow, Thursday, members of the Lebanese Parliament will hold a new session, the eighth of its kind, after they failed, last Thursday, for the seventh time, to elect a President of the Republic, to succeed President Michel Aoun, whose term ended on October 31. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned the session. After losing the quorum in the second session, a new session was set for Thursday, December 1.
Counting of votes ended as follows: 50 white papers, 42 Michel Moawad, 8 New Lebanon, 6 Essam Khalifa, 2 Ziad Baroud, 1 Badri Daher and 1 canceled.
Fears of a repeat of failure are increasing, but political and partisan circles see the need to reach an agreement between the various parties to end this political vacuum
The Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, invited the members of Parliament to attend a plenary session at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning, Thursday, to elect a new president for the republic.
The first session was held for this purpose on the twenty-ninth of last September, as the parliament has not been able to elect a new president for the country since then, because none of the candidates obtained the required majority to win the presidency.
The Lebanese constitution stipulates that the presidential seat is won by whoever obtains a majority of two-thirds of the number of parliament members by 86 out of 128 members in the first round, provided that a second round of elections will be held during the same session if no one wins from the first round, and he wins in the second round. Whoever gets only 65 votes.
A few days ago, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati expressed his hope for the cooperation of members of the Lebanese Parliament to elect a new president for the country, marking a new stage of recovery and advancement, stressing that the government will carry on with the national and constitutional work required of it in the belief that independence is a daily struggle in all forms, born of conviction. From the human heart and the core of his conscience.
This came in a statement he made, on the occasion of Lebanon's 79th Independence Day, considering that independence is one of the important milestones in the history of a homeland built by the arms of its people a long time ago and protecting it from the storms that recur from time to time.