iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014, but Monday hopes are high among its citizens that by the end of the day the nation will finally have a new leader.
 
Lebanon’s parliament is expected to elect 81-year-old Michel Aoun as the country’s president, ending a 29-month long vacuum of power that crippled state institutions and deepened rifts among rival factions.
 
The lack of leadership has been seen as a key contributor to paralysis of Lebanon’s parliament.
 
In turn, Lebanon’s trash crisis, poor water quality, failing electricity grid, an ongoing economic malaise, and its struggle to accommodate more than a million Syrian refugees has strained the patience of Lebanese and was a key contributor to massive social unrest during the summer of 2015.
 
Hezbollah, the Shiite militia in Lebanon, is strongly backing Aoun, a Maronite Christian, so his election Monday would signify a major victory for Hezbollah’s patron, Iran, and a deep decline of Saudi Arabian influence in Lebanon, which has held sway since the end of the war in 1990.
 
Yet, even politicians with major Saudi backing have conceded that something — anything — needs to be done to keep the peace.
 
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Saudi ally, said he is endorsing Aoun as a last resort to end the power vacuum and the possible eruption of violence.
 
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