Beirut, January 20, 2023 (Xinhua) – Today (Friday), a sit-in started by two Lebanese deputies continued at the parliament headquarters in the center of the capital, Beirut, for the second day in a row, with other deputies joining and solidarity until a new president is elected.
Yesterday (Thursday), two deputies from the “For Change” forces, Melhem Khalaf and Najat Aoun Saliba, began an open-ended sit-in inside the parliament’s general meeting hall to press for holding successive sessions until the election of a president.
Representative Saliba said in a televised interview from inside parliament, “This is not a sit-in, but a constitutional right and duty to remain in the hall until a president is elected.”
For his part, MP Khalaf said, “We are against the obstructive approach, and we are a new approach in this country, and we assure the Lebanese of the need not to lose hope.”
He added, “Our demand is to keep the sessions open until a president is elected. We feel as if democracy is failing in Lebanon, and we have a responsibility today to respect the democratic game.”
Representatives from several parliamentary blocs expressed solidarity with the two sit-in deputies, as about 12 deputies participated in the sit-in during the day, while the number of deputies who will sleep in Parliament tonight rose to 4, with two deputies from the “change” forces, Firas Hamdan and Halima Kaaqour, joining the two deputies Khalaf and Saliba.
In turn, the Lebanese Kataeb Party announced the participation of its deputies in the sit-in inside Parliament to demand the call for open plenary sessions dedicated to electing a new president for the country.
In a statement, the party confirmed that its deputies in parliament joined the two sit-in deputies alternately.
In addition, activists demonstrated in the vicinity of Parliament this afternoon and evening in solidarity with the two sit-in deputies, as the official Lebanese National News Agency reported blocking the road in front of the northern entrance to Parliament, where activists lay on the ground, calling for the speedy election of a president for the republic.
The demonstration was accompanied by security reinforcements of the Lebanese army and the parliament police on all the paths leading to the parliament.
And the Lebanese parliament failed yesterday (Thursday) for the 11th time since last September, by electing a president for the country to succeed Michel Aoun, whose term ended on October 31.
The stalemate in electing a new president is due to the dispersal of the parliamentary blocs in the parliament elected months ago and the fact that no party has a two-thirds majority to succeed its candidate in the first electoral cycle (86 deputies), while any party can lose the legal quorum to prevent the president from being elected by majority (65). deputies).
The political dispute and division taking place in the country, amid the interruption of communication between the major parliamentary blocs, leads to the parliament’s inability to elect a president for the country.
The dispute centers around the specifications of the next president between two teams, as each of the Free Patriotic Movement led by former President Michel Aoun and the Shiite duo in the Amal movement and Hezbollah seeks to elect a “consensual” president who enjoys unanimity, while another team that includes the Lebanese Forces Party, the Kataeb Party, the Progressive Socialist Party and deputies calls for Others to elect a “sovereign and reformist” president by a numerical majority.
The presidential vacuum comes at a time when Lebanon is suffering from a severe economic and financial crisis, which the World Bank has ranked among the worst in the world since the middle of the 19th century. /ts/
