Parliament failed Thursday for the ninth time to elect a new president, amid high tensions between the two allies Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement.

Thirty nine blank votes were cast and thirty nine MPs voted for MP Michel Mouawad.

Lebanon's once burgeoning banking sector has been hard hit by the country's historic economic meltdown. It has suffered staggering losses worth tens of billions of dollars and many of the small nation's lenders now face possible closures or mergers.

Yet bankers have been resisting attempts to make their shareholders assume responsibility for those losses and instead have been trying to shift the burden to the government or even their own depositors. The country's political class, blamed for decades of corruption and mismanagement that led to the meltdown, has also resisted reforms.

Qatar has “strongly” waded into the Lebanese presidential file in terms of negotiating with Iran, sources involved in the file said.

The memorandum of understanding between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement has suffered a blow but it has not collapsed, a highly informed political source said.

Hezbollah MPs are seriously leaning towards voting for Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh in the upcoming presidential vote session, a senior politician said.

The source told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Wednesday, that this is what sparked the Free Patriotic Movement's reaction to the caretaker cabinet session that took place on Monday despite being boycotted by the FPM.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Wednesday noted that “Lebanon is suffering from the absence of an authority that can take decisive resolutions, which generated several authorities and influential figures.”

Hezbollah had promised the Free Patriotic Movement that it would not take part in Monday’s cabinet session but it did not honor its pledge, MP Ghassan Atallah of the FPM said on Wednesday.

Lebanon has arrested 185 people suspected of collaborating with enemy state Israel since its economic collapse three years ago left many Lebanese desperate for cash, two security sources told AFP Wednesday.

That number has jumped significantly from a previous average of four or five arrests a year, one of the sources said.

Caretaker Industry Minister George Boujikian has been dismissed from the Armenian parliamentary bloc, following a cabinet session that he attended despite his bloc's decision to boycott.

Boujikian had attended Monday a caretaker cabinet session, despite a declared Free Patriotic Movement boycott and a decision by the Tashnag party not to attend.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday blasted Hezbollah, caretaker PM Najib Mikati and other parties over the caretaker cabinet session that was held on Monday, threatening to seek "broad administrative decentralization" should the other forces continue with the same course.