Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Thursday called for a session to elect a president on 9 January, the official National News Agency reported, following the announcement of a ceasefire between Hezbollah and the Israeli occupation army.

Speaker Nabih Berri called for a session of the House of Representatives to elect a president on 9 January,” the agency reported, after the position has been vacant for more than two years due to a lack of consensus among the political forces surrounding it.

Lebanon has not elected a president since the end of former president Michel Aoun’s term in October 2022, as parliament failed to elect a president for 12 sessions, the last of which was in September 2023, leaving the country with a presidential vacancy, the sixth in its modern history.

The political tradition in Lebanon is that the President of the Republic is from the Maronite sect, while the Prime Minister is from the Sunni sect and the Speaker of Parliament is from the Shiite sect.