Parliament Fails to Elect President for 15th Time
Lawmakers failed on Wednesday for the fifteenth time to elect a new president over a lack of quorum at parliament.
The next elections session has been scheduled for November 19.
LBCI television said that 54 lawmakers attended the session.
It was boycotted by the Change and Reform and Loyalty to the Resistance blocs of the March 8 alliance.
In attendance were blocs from the March 14 camp, centrist lawmakers, and Speaker Nabih Berri's Development and Liberation bloc.
The speaker did not attend the session in order to chair his weekly meeting with MPs at his Ain el-Tineh residence later on Wednesday.
Lebanon has been without a president since May when the term of Michel Suleiman ended.
Hizbullah and MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc have been boycotting electoral sessions due to a disagreement with the March 14 camp over a compromise presidential candidate.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, a presidential candidate, had previously accused them of adopting such measures in to order to blackmail political blocs into electing Aoun as president.
Commenting on the failure to hold the elections, Geagea said: “We will continue on heading to the elections sessions as a sign of our commitment to constitutional measures and the Lebanese system.”
He accused during a press conference Hizbullah and Aoun of obstructing the polls, adding: “I used to think that the obstruction was aimed at achieving personal gains, but I am beginning to question this.”
“The ongoing obstruction is no longer a political maneuver, but an attempt to target Lebanon's political system,” Geagea stressed.
“Certain standards stipulated in the constitution dictate how to stage the presidential elections, but Aoun and Hizbullah are violating these principles,” he explained.
M.T.
H.K.
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