The President of the Chamber, Nabih Berry, and the Bureau members, during the counting of votes, on Jan. 9, 2025. (Credit: Mohammad Yassine/OLJ)
The frontrunner, Army Commander Joseph Aoun, topped the votes with 71 out of 128. However, this is less than the 86 votes needed for a candidate to be elected in the first round and which he will still need — as a first-category civil servant — to potentially be elected in the following round.
The main takeaway from the session is that the Amal-Hezbollah tandem, which seemingly cast blank votes, was not ready to endorse the election of the frontrunner in the first round. The fact that the Speaker of the House requested a two-hour break before the second round suggests that negotiations will take place, with other parties but perhaps also with representatives of foreign powers present in the Parliament, to secure the rallying of the Amal and Hezbollah. These two parties are raising the stakes.
More importantly, in Nabih Berri’s logic, the legislative leader wanted to send a message that a president can never be elected without his blessing, aiming to maintain control for the upcoming phase, namely government formation and the next legislative elections. Above all, he did not want to offer the army chief the symbolic victory of a broad win in the first round.
It should be noted that 34 deputies cast blank votes while the duo has only 30 elected members. Thus, it rallied four deputies, who were supposed to vote for Joseph Aoun, to its strategy.