Lebanon’s deeply divided Parliament is set Thursday to try to elect a new president, potentially ending a yearslong political vacuum and ushering in a degree of stability for a country reeling from its bloodiest war in decades.
For more than two years, the tiny Mediterranean nation has been paralyzed by political gridlock and led by a weak caretaker government through a series of upheavals, including a historic economic collapse, a destructive war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and the collapse of the Assad regime in neighboring Syria.
Lebanon’s election of a president would be the first step in forming a full-fledged government with a mandate to steady the country. But, despite the urgency, it remains unclear whether anyone will be elected at all.
The country’s Parliament is fractured along sectarian lines and lawmakers have failed in 12 previous votes to elect a new president since October 2022, when Michel Aoun stepped down from the office at the end of his six-year term.
The vote on Thursday could be no different. Lebanon is facing diplomatic pressure by the United States and other foreign donors who have hinged postwar financial support on the election of a president. But it is not clear that the leading candidate, Joseph Aoun, the U.S.-backed commander of the Lebanese military (and unrelated to the former president), will receive enough votes to be elected.
“This election is about Lebanon basically reaching a necessary milestone in its much-needed recovery,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at Chatham House, a London-based research organization. “However, the reality is that Lebanon’s various political stakeholders are nowhere near reaching the consensus needed to agree on who will be the next president — even in this very critical period.”
“The stakes are higher than ever,” said Ms. Khatib.
The 14-month war between Israel and Hezbollah has left swaths of the country in ruin with little money to finance reconstruction. The World Bank estimates that the war has cost $8.5 billion in damages alone. Lebanon’s security situation also remains volatile, and the government that eventually takes shape will need to steer the country through a fragile 60-day cease-fire that diplomats hope will become permanent.
For over two years, Lebanon’s stalemate has paralyzed state institutions and exacerbated the country’s already crippling economic malaise. Hezbollah, the dominant political force in Lebanon, has long been considered one of the main stumbling blocks by many in the country. The group scuttled a bid last year to elect a top International Monetary Fund official as Lebanon’s president by walking out of the vote.
But analysts say that Israel’s lightning offensive against Hezbollah, which decimated the group’s leadership and shattered its image as a behemoth holding sway over the country, may provide the window of opportunity needed to break Lebanon’s political gridlock.
In the run-up to the coming election, Hezbollah appears to be showing some signs of flexibility, although it remains to be seen how the vote will play out. On Sunday, a senior official in the group, Wafiq Safa, signaled that it would not veto Mr. Aoun’s candidacy as many feared.
“They have calculated that they are still powerful, but they will have to make some concessions,” said Paul Salem, the vice president for international engagement at the Middle East Institute in Washington. “Now, they need massive and large-scale foreign aid, and they also need a legitimate state within which to exist — within which to protect themselves.”
“The first building block is to elect a president,” said Mr. Salem.
The Lebanese Parliament’s 128 members elect a president via a secret ballot, a process marred in recent years by walkouts. In the first round, a two-thirds majority is required, an outcome that analysts have called unlikely for Thursday. In subsequent rounds, however, a simple majority will suffice.
If a president is elected on Thursday, he would then appoint a prime minister, in consultation with Parliament, who will be tasked with forming the government. That is likely to be a long process, and the resulting executive body will ultimately be left with the herculean task of reviving the crisis-hit nation.
The Parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, a key Hezbollah ally, said in an interview with local media last week that he was determined to elect a president on Thursday. He has pledged to keep voting open until a candidate is agreed upon.
Mr. Berri conceded however that there was not yet any consensus on who that candidate would be, marking a departure from previous elections where stakeholders normally reach an informal agreement before the vote itself.
Amid the mounting uncertainty, Lebanon’s prime minister, Najib Mikati, who has become the beleaguered face of the country’s caretaker government, struck an optimistic tone on Wednesday.
“Today, and for the first time since the presidential vacancy, I feel happy,” he said in a statement. “God willing, tomorrow we will have a new president of the republic.”
