Confused last ditch efforts to “elect” a president by local, regional, and international consensus has thrown Lebanon into new uncertainty with only a few days left before the current president’s term expires. International brokers and kingpins are busy making the rounds domestically and regionally to resolve the deadlock. Following futile attempts to reach a deal amongst the different political leaders, an uneasy consensus relegated the duty of choosing a list of candidates to the Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: Eleventh hour politics and social malaise 

As the constitutional deadline of 24 November to elect a president looms large over Lebanon, the presidential race and the marathon rounds of meetings of political actors remained the overarching concern and topic of discussion in the Lebanese press (despite disturbing revelations about Nahr al-Bared camp mentioned in an article by Khaled Saghiyyeh). Marathon rounds of discussion may be a good omen in participatory or even representative democracies. But in a country governed by the necessity of consensus and the reality of sectarianism, seemingly endless talk can mean too little to agree on and a diplomatic denial of an impasse. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: Consensus or chaos? 

Electronic Lebanon is pleased to introduce Meet the Lebanese Press, a twice-monthly review of what is making the rounds in the Lebanese press and the pundits’ take on it. This week, the roller coaster of speculations in the Lebanese press about the outcome of shuttle diplomacy among Lebanese politicians and world leaders over the presidential file reached a significant low last week only to climb back into a new high over the weekend. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: Guess games and plotters