Stephen Kalin & Adam Chamseddine
Lebanon’s Parliament elected a U.S.-trained general as president, ending a two-year vacancy in a sign of Hezbollah’s waning influence following a bruising war with Israel and the weakening of the group’s Iranian patron.
After obstructing the election of any other candidate by withdrawing from a dozen previous sessions and thus depriving Parliament of quorum, Hezbollah and its allies voted in favor of Gen. Joseph Aoun as the country’s next president on Thursday, according to a Hezbollah lawmaker. Ninety-nine out of 128 members of Parliament voted for Aoun in the second round of voting, according to the Parliament speaker. In the first round, Hezbollah didn’t vote for Aoun, which it said was a message that its consent was still needed.
Aoun, who has headed the Lebanese military since 2017, takes power as the country looks to pick up the pieces from Israel’s intensive bombardment and invasion of parts of southern Lebanon that it launched in response to Hezbollah’s attacks.
“I pledge to execute my role as the head of the armed forces to insist on the right of the state to have a monopoly over weapons,” Aoun told Parliament upon being elected.
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