As Lebanon sinks further into acute economic crisis, President Michel Aoun's term of office approaches its end on October 31. Parliament members began the process of electing his successor on September 29. The political tug-of-war over this post, reserved for a member of the Maronite Christian community, is expected to be lengthy. During the last presidential election, Lebanon went without a president for 29 months.
The series of bank robberies by Lebanese citizens hoping to recover their own savings, which have been frozen for the past three years, attracted much foreign media attention in recent weeks and overshadowed the presidential election currently underway in Lebanon.
