The headquarters of Beirut Municipality (right) in the center of the capital. (Credit: Anwar Amro/Archives AFP)
BEIRUT — Abdallah Darwish was elected president the Beirut's municipality on Friday, two weeks after his predecessor, 60-year-old Jamal Itani, resigned for health reasons, the state-run National News Agency reported.
The vote took place during a session of the municipal council.
Parliament voted on April 18 to extend the terms of office of city councils until May 31, 2024.
Abdallah Darwish, new president of Beirut Municipality. (Credit: NNA)
Speaking after the results were announced, the new president felt that "the difficult circumstances Lebanon is going through due to the financial and economic collapse has had a negative impact on the municipality and its ability to meet urban requirements at different scales."
"We will define the priorities and work on them with the means at our disposal," he promised.
Recently interviewed by L'Orient-Le Jour, Ammar Abboud, secretary-general of the Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) said that Darwish "might not be able to overcome the many points of tension dividing" the municipal council.
The only municipality to be constrained by a "two-headed" distribution of prerogatives — a large part of the executive power usually attributed to the president of the municipal council reverts to the city's governor — the municipality of Beirut is known for its administrative slowness and other historical dysfunctions.
Last March, Itani told L'Orient-Le Jour that he was frustrated by "a poorly designed, unproductive system" that requires that the governor, Marwan Abboud, approve decisions.
On July 28, Itani, who had been in office since the last municipal elections in May 2016, announced his resignation due to, he said, his "inability to carry out his duties with the same energy."
The municipal elections, which had already been postponed by a year to 2022, were due to be held from May 7, 2023. In April, Parliament voted to extend the terms of office of municipal and mukhtar councils by a maximum of one year.
