Farmers in a small town perched on a northern Lebanese mountain have long refused to accept defeat even as the government abandoned them to a life off the grid.

Harf Beit Hasna receives almost no basic services. No water or sewage system, no streetlight or garbage collection. The only public school is closed. The nearest pharmacy is a long drive down a winding mountain road.

Consensus over a presidential candidate is “not possible until the moment” and MP Michel Mouawad does not meet the standards of the Free Patriotic Movement for new president, MP Simon Abi Ramia of the FPM said on Thursday, shortly after a first presidential vote session in which Mouawad emerged as the opposition camp’s leading candidate.

“The way the session went confirmed that no political camp is capable of electing a president without consensus with the other parties, due to the democratic and pluralistic system in Lebanon,” Abi Ramia said.

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Aroldo Lázaro on Thursday chaired a Tripartite meeting with senior officers of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israeli army at a U.N. position in Ras al-Naqoura.

President Michel Aoun on Thursday followed up from his office on the details of the first presidential election round that was held in parliament, expressing “relief over the start of the electoral process in an atmosphere of democracy,” the Presidency said.

“Democracy has always characterized the Lebanese system over the years, although the sequence of events over the past years necessitates an evaluation of the general political performance in the country,” the Presidency added in a statement.

Lebanese Forces deputy chief MP George Adwan announced Thursday that the first presidential election session proved that the ruling coalition is “in disarray,” after the Hezbollah-led camp refrained from voting for any of its two likely candidates, Suleiman Franjieh and Jebran Bassil, opting instead to cast blank votes.

“The opposition managed to propose a candidate in a first step to broaden support and unite the opposition, and the furthermost thing that the establishment managed to do was to cast blank votes,” Adwan said.

Senior Hezbollah legislator Mohammed Raad said Thursday that the crisis-hit country's parliamentary blocs are in the "early stages" of finding a president who would "bring stability to the country."

"The blocs need to discuss and develop an understanding over a possible consensus candidate," Raad told the press, after parliament held a first presidential election session in which no candidate managed to win the 86 votes needed to win from the first round.

MP Michel Mouawad, who garnered 36 votes in the first round of the presidential election session on Thursday, said the session witnessed “a key step on the course of uniting the opposition,” seeing as “a significant majority from the opposition” voted for him.

“Today 36 MPs granted me their confidence and four expressed their support for me despite their absence for various reasons,” Mouawad said at a press conference after the session.

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.