1970 Lebanese presidential election
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Member State of the Arab League |
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An indirect presidential election was held in the Parliament of Lebanon on 17 August 1970, resulting in Deputy Suleiman Frangieh being elected President of the Lebanese Republic.
By
Suleiman Frangieh, a deputy representing Zgharta in North Lebanon, posed as a conservative consensus candidate, gaining the support from both the left and right and across religious factions due to backlash from the 12 continuous years of reform from the
Results
All 99 MPs were present. Usually, a consensus candidate would have been agreed before-hand, however in this case both Frangieh and Sarkis had roughly equal support In the first round, a majority of two-thirds of present deputies was required; in the second and subsequent rounds, however, only a simple majority was needed.[2]
In the first round, no one received the 2/3 threshold needed, therefore the election proceeded to the second round. In that round, however, an extra ballot was cast (there were 100 votes in the urn and only 99 deputies in total), therefore the round was negated. In the third round, Frangieh won an upset victory over Élias Sarkis, the official candidate of the Chehabist regime, due to a last minute change of Kamal Jumblatt, who ordered one of his deputies to vote for Frangieh.[3] The Speaker of the Chamber,
Candidate | First round | Second round | Third round | |||
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Votes | % | Votes | % | Votes | % | |
Suleiman Frangieh | 38 | 38.4 | 50 | 50.5 | ||
Élias Sarkis | 45 | 45.5 | 49 | 49.5 | ||
Pierre Gemayel | 10 | 10.1 | ||||
Jamil Lahoud |
5 | 5.1 | ||||
Adnan Hakim |
1 | 1.0 | ||||
Extra ballot | 0 | – | 1 | – | 0 | – |
Total | 99 | 100 | 100 | – | 99 | 100 |
Eligible voters/turnout | 99 | 100 | 99 | – | 99 | 100 |
Source: The Monthly |
Aftermath
About 5 years later, the Lebanese Civil War began as armed right-wing Christian militias began clashing more often with left-wing Muslim PLO militias in Beirut.
References
- ^ Rabbath, Edmond. "La Constitution libanaise. Origines, textes et commentaires". Beyrouth: Publications de l'Université Libanaise, 1982, p. 301.
- ^ Election of the Presidents of the Lebanese Republic The Monthly, 9 July 2014
- .
- ^ "Talking To: Edmund Rizk". Archived from the original on 2019-03-06. Retrieved 2018-05-05.