BEIRUT: Speaker Nabih Berri postponed a parliamentary session to elect a new president to April 2, after the 20th attempt to elect a president failed Wednesday.
Like previous attempts, the 20th session to elect a head of state had been doomed to fail over a lack of quorum, owing to the absence of an accord between the rival factions on a consensus candidate.
Some 52 lawmakers representing the March 14 coalition attended Parliament for Wednesday's session.
Lawmakers from MP Michel Aoun’s parliamentary Change and Reform bloc, Hezbollah’s bloc and its March 8 allies, have thwarted a quorum since April 2014 by boycotting parliamentary sessions, demanding an agreement beforehand with their March 14 rivals over a consensus candidate.
The first election in May achieved quorom, but no candidate received enough votes.
The failure to pick a successor to former President Michel Sleiman, whose six-year tenure came to an end May 25, has plunged the country into a presidential impasse that has paralyzed Parliament.
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