MPs to boycott sessions until election of new president
FORTY-SIX members of Lebanon’s 128seat parliament announced on Saturday that they will not participate in any legislative session before electing a new president of the country.
The MPs said they would boycott all forthcoming legislative sessions in light of the presidential vacuum, the National News Agency reported.
The statement was signed by independent MPs as well as MPs from the Forces of Change, Kataeb and Lebanese Forces.
The 46 MPs support their claim with Article 75 of the Lebanese constitution, which stipulates: “The chamber meeting to elect the president of the republic shall be considered an electoral body and not a legislative assembly. It must proceed immediately, without discussion of any other act, to elect the head of the state.”
Parliament speaker Nabih Berri has called for 11 parliamentary sessions to elect a president since last September, but they failed to elect a new president as the term of former president Michel Aoun ended on October 31, 2022.
Prime minister-designate Najib Mikati failed to form a new government before Aoun left office, making his government go into caretaker mode.
Lebanon has an unprecedented dual executive-level power vacuum in the absence of both a president and a fully-empowered government. Lebanon needs a new president and an effective government capable of undertaking major structural reforms to unlock aid from the International Monetary Fund which might put the country on the path to recovery.
Lebanon has started to receive the first shipment of 33 000 tons of wheat financed by the World Bank via a $150million (R2.7 billion) loan.
The shipment, being unloaded at the Beirut port, is sufficient for about one month-worth of Arabic bread consumption in the country, the World Bank said.
Additional shipments would come over the following months to maintain access to affordable bread throughout the lifespan of the World Bank loan.
The Lebanon Wheat Supply Emergency Project, approved by the country’s parliament in July 2022, aimed to ensure wheat supply despite disruptions in the global commodity market. The loan would remain active until May 31, shows World Bank’s website.
“Any disruption of the wheat value chain will primarily impact poor and vulnerable host communities and refugees,” World Bank Mashreq Country Director Jean-Christophe Carret said.
Lebanese caretaker Economy Minister Amin Salam said the loan will provide great relief by stabilising wheat supply and bread prices in Lebanon in the country’s most challenging times.
Lebanon imports nearly 80% of the wheat it consumes, a vast majority of which used to come from now conflict-plagued Ukraine and Russia, the statement noted.