The quorum was broken after the Hezbollah-led bloc withdrew after the first round.
Lebanon’s parliament has failed, for the 12th time, to elect a president and break a political stalemate that has gripped the country for months.
Lawmakers held a session on Wednesday to choose a replacement for former president Michel Aoun, whose term ended last October, but disagreements prevented them from reaching the required thresholds.
The main competition was between Jihad Azour, former finance minister and senior official of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Sleiman Frangieh, leader of the Marada party, whose family has a long history in Lebanese politics.
The Lebanese Parliament requires 86 of a possible maximum of 128 lawmakers, or two-thirds, to elect a new leader in the first round of voting.
Azour, who is backed by the Iranian-backed opposition Hezbollah, beat his opponent in the first round with 59 votes to Frangieh’s 51, but fell short of the required majority.
Eighteen legislators cast blank or protest votes or voted for minority candidates.
The bloc led by powerful Hezbollah withdrew after the initial round, breaking the quorum and preventing a second round of voting, where candidates needed just a 65-vote majority to secure the presidency.
Lebanon has a complex confessional political system based on the National Pact, an unwritten pact between the country’s political blocs first agreed in 1943 to establish faith-based representation and power-sharing.
According to the pact, the president and army commander must be Maronite Christians, while the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the parliament a Shiite Muslim.
The positions of deputy speaker of parliament and deputy prime minister are held by Greek Orthodox Christians, and the chief of staff of the armed forces is always Druze.
The deputies themselves are divided according to a quota system, with a 6:5 ratio required for Christians to Muslims and Druze.
Shiite members of parliament have largely backed Frangieh, who is Hezbollah’s preferred candidate, while Azour has the support of most Druze lawmakers.
Once elected, the new president will have to navigate a major economic crisis that began in 2019, along with a political system that has long suffered from corruption and mismanagement.
Some have advocated for a bailout deal with the IMF as an important component of Lebanon’s economic recovery, which may favor Azour as he held the position of regional director for the Middle East and North Africa in the organization until he took a leave of absence last week to pursue his candidacy.
