Deputies of Lebanon's new Assembly on Tuesday re-elected the outgoing Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, an ally of the powerful Shiite Hezbollah movement, for a seventh consecutive term, confirming his status as an irremovable traditional political figure.
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Nabih Berri, 84 and in office for 30 years, was reappointed for four years, although Hezbollah and its allies lost the majority in Parliament during legislative elections marked by a breakthrough of independent candidates.
He got 65 votes (out of 128), compared to 98 votes in the last elections in 2018. There were 23 blank ballots and 40 invalid votes.
A serious socio-economic crisis
Members of parliament expressed their objection to his re-election by writing slogans on the ballot papers.
"
Justice for the victims of the Beirut explosion
," some MPs wrote, referring to the explosion at the capital's port in 2020 that killed more than 200 people.
Several other ballots included the name of "
Lokman Slim
", an activist and intellectual critical of Hezbollah, found murdered in his car in February 2021.
Undisputed on the political scene, Nabih Berri won the election as Lebanon is hit by the worst socio-economic crisis in its history.
This is attributed by a large part of the population, international organizations and foreign countries to the corruption and inertia of the ruling class, unchanged for decades and of which Nabih Berri is a part.
Nabih Berri will preside over a very fragmented parliament, raising fears of new deadlocks like those that have paralyzed Lebanese political life for decades.
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The new Assembly will be tasked with pushing through long-awaited reforms to stem the financial crisis that has plunged most Lebanese into poverty.
Lebanon is governed by a complex system of power sharing between the different religious communities: the president is necessarily Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the speaker of the Parliament a Shia Muslim.
