Middle East & Africa | Thirteenth time lucky?

Lebanon tries yet again to elect a new president

But it will not be easy to convince its corrupt politicians to reform

An inside view of the empty Baabda Palace
Photograph: Getty Images
|DUBAI

IT IS RARE that a presidential palace stays empty for long: politics abhors a vacuum. But the one in Baabda, in the hills above Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, has been vacant since October 2022, when Michel Aoun finished his six-year term. Lawmakers have failed to select his successor a dozen times. The last attempt was in June 2023, but as The Economist went to press on January 9th, they were trying again.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Will it have a new president at last?”

From the January 11th 2025 edition

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