Beirut: Lebanon’s parliament voted Thursday to elect the country’s army commander, Joseph Aoun, as head of state, filling a more than two-year-long presidential vacuum.

The vote came weeks after a tenuous ceasefire agreement halted a 14-month conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and at a time when Lebanon’s leaders are seeking international assistance for reconstruction.

Aoun, no relation to former president Michel Aoun, was widely seen as the preferred candidate of the United States and Saudi Arabia, whose assistance Lebanon will need as it seeks to rebuild after between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The session was the legislature’s 13th attempt to elect a successor to Michel Aoun, whose term ended in October 2022.

Hezbollah previously backed another candidate, Suleiman Frangieh, the leader of a small Christian party in northern Lebanon with close ties to former Syrian President Bashar Assad. However, on Wednesday, Frangieh announced he had withdrawn from the race and endorsed Aoun, clearing the way for the army chief.

Randa Slim, a senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Middle East Institute, said that the military and political weakening of Hezbollah following its war with Israel and the fall of its ally,........

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