The Lebanese parliament on Thursday held a first presidential election round in which no candidate managed to garner 86 votes needed to win from the first round.

As 63 MPs cast blank ballots, 36 voted for MP Michel Mouawad, 11 voted for entrepreneur and philanthropist Salim Edde, 10 voted for "Lebanon", one voted for Mahsa Amini who died in Iranian morality police custody, and one voted for "the approach of (slain ex-PM) Rashid Karami".

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Wednesday that the FPM-led Strong Lebanon bloc will cast blank votes in a presidential election session scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday.

“We will take part in tomorrow’s session and will cast blank votes, because we don’t have any candidate whom we support until now,” Bassil said at a press conference.

Lebanon will weaken its official exchange rate for the first time in more than two decades, the Finance Ministry and a Central Bank official said, as part of efforts to tackle a crippling financial crisis.

In a statement, the Ministry called the move a "necessary corrective action" and noted that the Central Bank has approved it. The decision is a "step to gradually unify exchange rates" in the country, it added.

The government formation file has returned to square one following the optimism of the past days, a top official told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Wednesday.

“After having agreed with President Michel Aoun on announcing the government once he returns from abroad, (PM-designate Najib) Mikati was surprised after his return that the situation had changed and that Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil had interfered with the President to propose changing all his ministers in the (caretaker) government and naming political ministers instead of them or expanding the government by adding six political state ministers,” the official said.

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has met with Arab Tawhid Party leader Wiam Wahhab.

A Hezbollah statement said the talks tackled “the most important files and issues that are currently preoccupying the Lebanese, as well as the developments in the region.”

The Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb Party and the Progressive Socialist Party want MP Michel Mouawad to be the opposition camp’s candidate in Thursday’s presidential vote session, but Mouawad is “not accepted by the Change MPs because they want a candidate who is not part of political alignments,” MTV reported on Wednesday.

The TV network added that the LF, Kataeb, the PSP and the Change bloc will likely vote for ex-MP Salah Honein, who is an “acceptable” candidate for the Change bloc.

Most of the country’s parliamentary blocs and independent MPs will take part in Thursday’s presidential election session, several blocs and TV networks said on Wednesday.

Confirming that the Lebanese Forces-led Strong Republic bloc will participate in the session, LF sources told LBCI TV that the party had intensified its contacts with the opposition parties over the past hours in a bid to reach consensus over a single candidate ahead of the session.

An elderly Lebanese priest found guilty in France of sexually assaulting children has been defrocked by the Vatican, the Assembly of Catholic Patriarchs and Bishops of Lebanon said.

Jihad Michlawi struggled to make ends meet as a chef in crisis-hit Beirut. The Palestinian had never considered taking a perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe until friends who did so persuaded him to try.

Now, he's one of dozens of survivors from a capsized migrant boat that left Tripoli, Lebanon, last week heading toward Italy carrying some 150 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians.

MP Charbel Maroun of the Free Patriotic Movement-led Strong Lebanon bloc was on Tuesday summoned for judicial interrogation over his recent remarks against Higher Judicial Council chief Judge Suheil Abboud.

The interrogation session has been scheduled for Thursday.