While the six-year mandate of Lebanese President Michel Aoun ended on October 31, the 128 deputies who are constitutionally responsible for electing his successor are still far from finding common ground to provide the country with a leader. of State.
On November 24, they failed for the seventh time to elect a president.
A new electoral session is scheduled for Thursday, December 1.
She, too, has no chance of succeeding.
During the last presidential election, the country of the Cedars remained without a president for 29 months, before an agreement was reached to proceed with the election of Michel Aoun.
So far, only one candidate has declared himself officially.
This is Michel Moawad, a young deputy from a large Maronite Christian family from Zghorta, a town in northern Lebanon.
During the last electoral session, he collected 42 votes from the ranks of the opposition, while 50 of the 110 parliamentarians present voted blank, the others having voted for undeclared candidates.
To be elected in the first round to this position reserved for Maronite Christians, 86 votes are needed.
02:00
© France 24
This result, which closely resembles that of previous sessions, does not discourage Michel Moawad.
Francophone, a graduate in public law from the University of Paris 2 Panthéon Assas, he knows perfectly well the challenges and risks that a political career holds in Lebanon and the ambition to play leading roles there.
The legacy policy
Born in 1972 and father of four children, he is the son and political heir of former President René Moawad, who was assassinated on November 22, 1989, the same day as Lebanon's Independence Day and just over two weeks after his election on November 5.
The sponsors of the attack, which targeted his convoy in a district of Beirut occupied by Syrian forces, and attributed to Damascus by his family, have never been found or convicted.
President René Moawad (left) takes the oath shortly after his election, in Qlaiaat, north of Beirut, on November 5, 1989. Ramzi Haidar, Nabil Ismail, AFP (archives)
Like his late father, who enjoyed the image of a reformist and moderate politician, Michel Moawad pleads for a sovereign Lebanon and for the restoration of a strong state.
In an interview granted to the Arab antenna of France 24 at the beginning of November, he affirms "not to run behind a post but to defend a cause, that of Lebanon".
He believes he has proven this by resigning from his post as deputy five days after the deadly double explosion that occurred in the port of Beirut on August 4, 2020. A move he describes as a "political act" intended to denounce the inability of the government as of Parliament to assume their responsibilities, and to show its impossibility to reform the system from the inside.
Re-elected in Zghorta during the last legislative elections in May 2022, in the same constituency once won by his father and, after his assassination, by his mother Nayla Moawad – who was also Minister of Social Affairs between 2005 and 2008 – the sovereigntist dreams of unify the ranks of a heterogeneous and divided opposition.
An essential prerequisite according to him to change the political situation in a country which has seen its economy collapsing day after day since October 2019.
"I am convinced that if the opposition does not come together behind a common vision and a candidate to embody it, missioned to restore the state and trust, then it will be an opposition without influence and marginalized, and therefore powerless."
Michel Moawad believes that if he managed to form a united bloc of 65 opposition deputies, it would be easier to weigh on the political scene and to propose not a compromise but an agreement to the camp opposite, the one dominated by the Shiite Hezbollah.
"Lebanon is in this situation because the state is taken hostage by political mafias and by weapons that are beyond its control," he said in an explicit allusion to the arsenal of the pro-Iranian party. an agreement to end it, because a compromise can only maintain hegemony and the status quo and therefore the continuation of the economic collapse of the country.
A challenge candidate according to Hezbollah
A difficult bet to win, as Michel Moawad, notorious opponent of the political domination and weapons of Hezbollah, is perceived as a challenge candidate by the party and the allies of Hassan Nasrallah.
Critics of the young parliamentarian accuse him of political opportunism, recalling his closeness to Washington or his joint list with candidates from the party of President Michel Aoun, the political ally of the Shiite party, during the 2018 legislative elections. he later publicly regretted.
Now dubbed for this presidential election by the main traditional opposition forces, including the two Christian parties (Lebanese Forces and Kataeb) and the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) of Druze leader Walid Joumblatt, the candidate refuses the concept of a consensual president .
"Such a president will in reality be a president of compromise, weak, gray, colorless, odorless, and without any power of decision, he judges. He will not be able to do anything to change the lives of the Lebanese, who will continue to to impoverish, to suffer humiliations, and to die."
In response to observers who believe that there cannot be an elected president in Lebanon without a prior agreement between the regional powers which intend to play a role in Beirut, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, with a green light from the major powers like the United States and France, Michel Moawad appeals to his colleagues.
"We are called upon to elect the president of Lebanon, we must not wait for a regional or Arab agreement, nor the possible end of discussions on Iranian nuclear power or even a French initiative, that would be shameful. We must go to Parliament to elect our president and exercise our constitutional and political duties," he said.
A message that may not find an echo on Thursday in Beirut.
The summary of the
France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 app