Lebanese Deputies Nominate Former IMF Official Jihad Azour for Presidency After 7 Months of Vacancy

After more than seven months of presidential vacancy, 32 Lebanese deputies announced Sunday the nomination of an official in the International Monetary Fund, former minister Jihad Azour, for the presidency.

Since the end of former President Michel Aoun’s term at the end of October, the Lebanese parliament has failed for 11 sessions to elect a president, amid a division between a party that supports “Hezbollah” and another that opposes it, and discrepancies within each group, and the presence of independents.

For weeks, the most prominent Christian parties, the “Lebanese Forces”, the “Free Patriotic Movement” and the “Kataeb”, have been seeking to agree on Azour in a country where the first three presidencies are distributed on a sectarian basis: the Presidency of the Republic for the Maronites, the Presidency of the Parliament for the Shiites, and the Presidency of the Council of Ministers for the Sunnis. .

The announcement of Azour’s candidacy comes after extensive contacts between opposition blocs and the “Free Patriotic Movement”, the most prominent Christian ally of “Hezbollah” and who opposed it on the issue of the presidency of the republic, which ended with a “intersection” on Azour’s name.

During a press conference, Representative Mark Daou read a statement on behalf of 32 deputies announcing Azour’s candidacy “as a moderate convergence candidate that is not provocative to any political component in the country.”

Moawad withdrawal

The 32 deputies represent opposition blocs, most notably the “Lebanese Forces” party, which has a strong parliamentary bloc, and the Christian “phalanges”, as well as MP Michel Moawad, independent deputies and a few others belonging to the Changeists bloc emanating from the protests against the political class in 2019.

They previously supported Moawad, who was the first to run for the position, before announcing on Sunday that he had withdrawn his candidacy to give Azour an opportunity.

The head of the “Free Patriotic Movement” Gebran Bassil, rejecting the nomination of Suleiman Franjieh, announced the “intersection” of his party with other parliamentary blocs named after Azour, despite the rivalry that brings him together with a number of them.

On the other hand, Hezbollah and its ally, the Amal Movement, led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, support the candidacy of their ally Franjieh, who is close to Damascus.

“Do not tire yourselves and waste time, the candidate of challenge and confrontation will not reach Baabda, whatever his name is,” said Hassan Fadlallah, a representative of “Hezbollah”, according to what was reported by local media. Hezbollah officials had previously described Moawad as a “challenging” candidate.

Abdel Sater and Nasrallah meeting

In the context, the Secretary-General of “Hezbollah” Hassan Nasr received the Archbishop of Beirut, Bishop Boulos Abdel Sater, delegated by the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rai.

According to a statement distributed by the media office in the patriarchal edifice in Bkerke, Patriarch Al-Rahi dispatched Archbishop Abdel Sater to meet Nasrallah, as part of “consultations and contacts that he initiated with all Lebanese parties, in order to facilitate the completion of the presidential election and end the fatal vacuum in the first presidency.”

It is not clear when Berri will call for a new parliamentary session to elect a president. So far, no party has a parliamentary majority to enable it to field its candidate.

Azour holds the position of Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund, and he held the position of Lebanese Minister of Finance between 2005 and 2008.

Azour holds, according to the IMF website, a doctorate in international financial sciences and a higher degree in international economics and financial sciences.

The international community is urging officials to elect a president, and Paris is leading a movement to expedite this in order to carry out urgent reforms, which is a major condition for Lebanon to obtain international financial support to get it out of its ongoing economic crisis since 2019.