Bou Saab elected deputy speaker with 65 votes, Skaff gets 60

MP Elias Bou Saab of the Free Patriotic Movement was on Tuesday elected deputy parliament speaker with 65 votes in the 128-seat legislature, as MP Ghassan Skaff, who is backed by the Progressive Socialist Party, garnered 60 votes.

Bou Saab won 64 votes in the first round of voting, failing to garner the 65 votes needed to be elected from the first round. Skaff garnered only 49 votes in that round as 13 blank ballots were cast.

“This is true democracy and I thank anyone who voted for me,” Bou Saab said after the vote.

Admitting that the competition for the post was tough, Bou Saab noted that he was expected to win 61 or 62 votes, not 65.

“We must forget everything that happened and put it behind our backs and we must enter with a new mentality and must work with everyone,” he added.

“Everyone has called for reforms, and in my meeting with Speaker Nabih Berri, I promised that there are many issues that we should work on,” Bou Saab said.

A lengthy debate later erupted over how parliament’s two secretaries should be elected. By convention, the two seats are reserved for a Maronite MP and a Druze MP. Speaker Nabih Berri later announced that two rounds of voting would be organized – the first to pick the Maronite secretary and the second to choose the Maronite.

The new legislature is being ushered in as Lebanon remains in the grip of the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement by the ruling class, which has been running the country since the end of the civil war.

The May 15 election was the first since Lebanon's economic crisis began in late 2019, sparking nationwide mass protests against the political class.

The new parliament is deeply divided with no coalition holding majority seats in the 128-member legislature. Hizbullah and its allies lost the majority they had held since 2018, and now hold 61 seats -- four short of an absolute majority.