Beirut: An aide to the speaker of the Lebanese parliament says that a parliamentary session to elect the country’s new president has been set for next week.
Aide Mohammad Ballout said Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri made the announcement Wednesday. Ballout said the session will be held Wednesday, April 23.
According to Lebanon’s sectarian-based power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and the parliament speaker a Shiite.
Politicians have clashed over who should take the role after the six-year term of the current president, Michel Sulaiman ends. Much of the bickering is related to the war in neighboring Syria.
Sulaiman is seen as hostile to the Lebanese Shiite party Hezbollah, whose fighters are battling alongside forces of President Bashar Al Assad in Syria.
