Following tense scenes early in the session, the first round of Thursday's vote concluded with 71 votes for Joseph Aoun, the widely supported army commander.
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00:00Lebanon's parliament has elected army commander Joseph Aoun as president, breaking a two-year
00:06deadlock.
00:07Aoun's emergence came after parliament held the two rounds of voting session to elect
00:12the country's president on Thursday.
00:14In the first rounds, the Lebanese army commander secured 71 out of 128 votes and fell short
00:21of the two-thirds majority required for an outright win.
00:25The vote, which saw all 128 members of the legislature present, took place amid chaotic
00:31scenes early in the session, with lawmakers shouting over one another.
00:37Aoun is considered to be the preferred candidate of Lebanon's key allies, the United States
00:42and Saudi Arabia.
00:44He now faces a daunting task of governing an overwhelmed nation, first by maintaining
00:50the ceasefire agreements between Israel and Hezbollah and working to revive an ailing
00:56economy that has decimated the country's currency and wiped out the savings of many Lebanese.