Michel Aoun, the 89-year-old president who presided over Lebanon’s cataclysmic financial meltdown and the deadly Beirut port blast, which he was aware of the risks of prior, vacated the presidential palace leaving a void at the top of a failing state.
Aoun left with the government’s resignation signed, since under Lebanon’s system the president must approve any new cabinet that forms, and the outgoing incumbent has not done so.
The six-year term of Michel Aoun expires tonight.
Since Lebanon’s economic crisis erupted in late 2019, Aoun has repeatedly refused to sign off on cabinet line-ups submitted to him by PMs Saad Hariri and Najib Mikati, leading to extended stalemates around who would run the government.
