BEIRUT (Al Jazeera) –
Lebanon’s parliament has – for the 12th time – failed to elect a president and break a political deadlock that has gripped the country for months.
Lawmakers held a session on Wednesday to pick a replacement for former President Michel Aoun, whose term ended last October, but disagreements prevented them from reaching the required thresholds.
The main competition was between Jihad Azour, a former finance minister and senior official with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Sleiman Frangieh, leader of the Marada party whose family has a long history in Lebanese politics.
The Lebanese Parliament requires 86 from a possible maximum of 128 lawmakers, or two-thirds, to elect a new leader in the first round of voting.
Azour edged higher than his opponent during the first round with 59 votes to Frangieh’s 51, but failed to achieve the required majority.
Eighteen lawmakers cast blank ballots or protest votes or voted for minority candidates.
The bloc led by the powerful Hezbollah withdrew after the initial round, breaking quorum and preventing a second round of voting, where candidates required only a majority of 65 votes to secure the presidency.
Lebanon has a complex confessional political system based on the National Pact, an unwritten pact between the country’s political blocs that was first agreed in 1943 to set out faith-based representation and power-sharing.
Based on the pact, the president and the commander of the army need to be Maronite Christians, while the prime minister must be Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker Shia Muslim.
The deputy speaker of parliament and deputy prime minister positions are held by Greek Orthodox Christians, and the armed forces chief of the general staff of the armed forces is always Druze.
The MPs themselves are divided along a quota system, with a ratio of 6:5 required of Christians to Muslims and Druze.
The Shia members of parliament have largely backed Frangieh, who is Hezbollah’s preferred candidate, while Azour is backed by the majority of Druze legislators.
When elected, the new president will have to navigate a major economic crisis that began in 2019, along with a political system that has long suffered from corruption and mismanagement.