This content was published on November 03, 2022 – 06:55 November 03, 2022 – 06:55
Beirut, 3 November (EFE).- The Lebanese parliament meets this Thursday for the first time since the head of state was left empty on Monday due to the chamber’s inability to appoint a new president, in a session aimed at doing so to debate the validity of the current caretaker government.
The chamber will convene at 11:00 local time (9:00 GMT) and the only item on the agenda is a decree by which former Lebanese President Michel Aoun accepted the technical resignation of executive interim Najib last Sunday, a day before his term expired Mikati.
The government entered the transitional period back in June, with the Prime Minister claiming that Aoun’s measure had no “constitutional value” and both he and his ministers have continued their work as usual over the past few days.
In the event of a vacuum in the head of state, the Cabinet of Ministers must assume presidential powers pending the appointment of a successor, which the former head of state sought to avoid by accepting Mikati’s resignation more than four months after the latter’s proposal.
It is hoped that today’s meeting will be purely bureaucratic to serve as acknowledgment of receipt of the communication sent by Aoun on the matter and that the Mikati Executive remains active, albeit in office, to fill a double power vacuum avoid.
Aoun’s own party, the Free Patriotic Movement, acknowledged that had the House taken the issue seriously it would have called a session Monday before the country’s presidency went vacant at midnight.
At today’s session, the chamber will make no further attempt to elect a new head of state after failing four times in the past two months.
The head of the chamber, Nabih Berri, announced yesterday that there would be no dialogue between the different parliamentary blocs to try and reach a consensus, as some of them raised “objections and reservations” about his proposal to start negotiations had.
No bloc has had a majority in the chamber since last May’s general election, making it even more difficult to reach a minimum agreement in Lebanon’s polarized political spectrum, which is governed by a complex sectarian system of power-sharing. EFE
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