In a week and President Aoun will leave .. Lebanon to where?

Lebanon prepares to greet President Michel Aoun, whose presidential term is entering the last week, in absence of any prospect of electing a successor.

Aoun’s term expires on October 31, while the Lebanese parliament has failed to elect a new president in 3 sessions held a tale purpose, the last of which was last Thursday.

Nabih Berri, president of the Lebanese parliament, has called for a new session to elect a president tomorrow, Monday, amid expectations that it will not lead to a result, due to the differences between the blocs and political parties in the country.

Lebanon has been hit by a political crisis since last May, which prevented Najib Mikati, the Prime Minister-designate, from forming his government, parallel to a severe economic crisis that has hit the country, and has left its effects on the price. currency and the prices of all products, including energy and food prices.

If Aoun’s last week ends without a president being elected, Lebanon will enter in a dark tunnel of presidential vacancies, in which he had remained for two years before the election of the current president in 2016.

The era of crises

Lebanese see Aoun’s presidency as the era that witnessed Lebanon’s worst crises since the civil war, in notably the bombing of the port of Beirut and its consequences, as well as other crises.

Aoun’s last week at the Baabda Palace could see the signing of a historic agreement between Lebanon and Israel to delimit common maritime borders, an agreement that was brokered by the United States.

The deadline for the signing of the agreement has not been set, for which a ceremony will be held in Naqoura in southern Lebanon, due to the postponement of the arrival of the American mediator in the demarcation file, Amos Hochstein in Lebanon from Tuesday to next Wednesday and further amendments to the texts of the document that Hochstein will deliver to Lebanese and Israeli officials.

Aoun did not content himself with agreeing on the border with Israel, but went in Syria, Lebanon’s northern neighbor, where he discussed the same passage in a telephone conversation with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and agreed to conduct direct negotiations between officials of the Foreign Ministry in the two countries to resolve the issues in suspended in this dossier.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun

According to the media Lebanese, Aoun wants to mark a landmark for himself before leaving his post, in middle to record of failures it has caused.

Fears of a presidential vacancy

The most important issue in the last week of Aoun’s mandate remains the election of the new president, to prevent the country from entering in a dark tunnel similar to what happened before his election in 2016, when the Lebanese parliament held 45 sessions with no results.

The winning candidate must be a Maronite Christian (the largest Christian denomination in Lebanon) and must obtain two thirds of the votes of parliamentarians (86 out of 128 deputies).

The Lebanese parliament comprises 34 representatives of the Maronite community distributed in 4 parliamentary blocs, as well as some independent ones.

Hezbollah supports Gebran Bassil and Suleiman Franjieh, and is trying to get each of them to give up on the other’s candidacy, but so far it has failed.

For his part, the president of the Lebanese parliament Nabih Berri has promised that “he will not stand by and watch” and will try to resolve the election of a president to succeed Aoun, against the backdrop of his repeated stumbling blocks.

Berri confirmed in statements to the press that he would have asked for an open dialogue to pave the way for the election of the president and cut the vacancy for the presidency.

He specified that “it does not interfere in the formation of the government, but closely follows the outcome of the consultations held so far in this regard”.

Who controls the election of the new president?

According to the media Lebanese, 3 main forces can be monitored in the dossier of the election of the Lebanese president: the first is the sovereign opposition team that wants presidential elections and adopts the candidacy of deputy Michel Moawad, son of former president Rene Moawad, who was assassinated in 1989 He is a politician and current member of the Lebanese Parliament and founder of the Lebanese Parliament The Movement for Political Independence and its leader, and former member of the leadership of the March 14 Forces.

The second group has not nominated any candidates and is running for elections with the White Paper and its goal is to empty the government and the presidency, which would allow it to extract more profits.As for the third group, it includes the 13 MPs for the change they showed a lack of political experience, which dispersed their efforts, according to analysts.

Is the government resigning?

In the context of the unstable political situation, the office of Lebanese President Michel Aoun denied that what was published on the intention of the President of the Republic to issue a decree accepting the resignation of the government was absolutely wrong.

The Lebanese presidency confirmed that “this information is part of a deliberate confusion and systematic abuse of the position of the presidency and the person of the president”.