Parliament to defer election of Lebanon’s next president

The Lebanese parliament convenes on April 23 in the first session to try to elect a new president. However, the political forces and all external parties know that a president will not be elected in this session.

According to the Lebanese constitution, a parliamentary session to elect a president of the republic must be attended by at least two-thirds of the deputies, i.e., 86 deputies out of 128. To become president, a candidate must win 86 votes in the first voting round of a session and 65 votes in the second round of the same session. But if that does not happen and another session is scheduled, it will be considered a separate session and will require the candidate to win 86 votes in the first round, or 65 votes in the second or subsequent rounds.

Politically, none of the parties to the conflict can gather a parliamentary majority to secure victory in the first round, or even in the second round. Neither party has 65 deputies in parliament. So everybody is confident that the session on April 23 will not elect a president. This session will be a “feeler,” or a first match in the presidential contest.

This session, however, will have important functions. The first is that it will clearly reveal the size of the forces. The team of former Prime Minister Saad Hariri is moving to embrace the nomination of Samir Geagea, the head of the Lebanese Forces party. That nomination is remarkable and will have consequences within the team itself, because it will show how much the components of the alliance are united around a single candidate. It will also show the actual number of votes that this team can gather for its own candidate.