Saudi Arabia has informed its allies in Lebanon that it supports the election as president of Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, because he is “firm in his stances, centrist, unbiased and capable of talking to all political parties in Lebanon,” an Arab diplomat has said in a closed-door meeting.

“He is the most suitable candidate in the current period,” ad-Diyar newspaper quoted the Arab diplomat as saying.

The French drive regarding the Lebanese presidential file has hit again a dead end, al-Akhbar newspaper said Thursday, as foreign sources indicated a long period of presidential vacuum.

The daily reported that the French are trying to imply a progress by inaccurately interpreting the Saudi position, but that Saudi Arabia is standing its ground regarding the file.

"This is not an electoral process, it's a process of waiting for compromise that is to the detriment of the country, the people, the economy and the constitution," said MP and Kataeb party chief Sami Gemayel.

Gemayel decried the results of a seventh parliamentary session that failed again Thursday to elect a successor to former president Michel Aoun, even though the vacancy is hampering efforts to rescue the stricken economy.

During his latest visit to Paris, Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil tried to convince the French with endorsing a number of presidential candidates, a media report said on Thursday.

“He raised the names with them seeking ‘a bargain and an exchange of services,’ an approach that the French side did not welcome,” highly informed sources told the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper.

The Constitutional Council on Thursday annulled the parliamentary membership of Rami Fanj (Tripoli, Sunni) and Firas al-Salloum, declaring the win of Faisal Karami (Tripoli, Sunni) and Haidar Nasser (Tripoli, Alawite).

Karami is an ally of Hezbollah and the March 8 camp while Fanj was a member of the 13-MP Change bloc. Nasser meanwhile was a member of Fanj’s electoral list.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced Thursday that exiting the country’s multifaceted crisis should be through “a general solution and a general settlement.”

He added that such a settlement “should before anything else entail the election of a president as soon as possible, the formation of a new government, speeding up the cycle of the aspired reforms and reaching a final agreement with the International Monetary Fund.”

Parliament on Thursday held a seventh session for the election of a new president to no avail, prolonging the political crisis in the country.

As 50 blank votes were cast by Hezbollah and its allies, 42 votes went to MP Michel Mouawad, eight for “New Lebanon”, six went to the academic and historian Issam Khalife, two went to ex-minister Ziad Baroud and one went to jailed Customs chief Badri Daher.

The head of the Finance Parliamentary Committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, announced Wednesday that “remarkable progress” has been made in the discussions related to the establishment of a sovereign fund to manage Lebanon’s offshore oil and gas resources.

The LBP 15,000 dollar exchange rate for fees and taxes on imported goods will enter into effect as of December 1, 2022, caretaker Finance Minister Youssef Khalil said on Wednesday.

Three banks were stormed Wednesday by three depositors in various Lebanese regions.

In the southern city of Tyre, the depositor Reda Reda stormed Bank Audi, demanding money for the treatment of his cancer-stricken mother, the Lebanese Depositors Association said.