Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri will not call for a president election session unless there are serious candidates competing for presidency, MTV said Wednesday.

The media outlet added that Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat have affirmed that MP and presidential candidate Michel Mouawad has no chances of becoming president.

Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat has tried to reach a presidential consensus with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

"We're trying to cross some barriers in order to reach a consensus that would give us hope that a president will be elected," Jumblat said after meeting Berri in Ain el-Tineh.

UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major General Aroldo Lázaro chaired a regular Tripartite meeting at a U.N. position in Ras al-Naqoura on Tuesday.

“Through 2023 we must prioritize maintaining the cessation of hostilities,” he said. “In all our actions we should seek to de-escalate and reduce tensions along the Blue Line.”

Democratic Gathering Bloc chief MP Taymour Jumblat met Tuesday with Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkerki.

He was accompanied by a delegation from the bloc.

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said Tuesday that he will call for a cabinet session over the educational file, this week or early next week.

"The education minister will deliver proposals regarding the educational file and the public sector teachers strike," Mikati said, adding that he will call for cabinet to convene by early next week at the latest.

The Finance and Budget Committee convened Monday to study the draft law on "restoring the balance of financial regularity."

MP Ibrahim Kanaan stated after the meeting that all the required data is still missing, asking the government, the Banking Control Commission and the Central Bank to provide the needed information and figures.

State Prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat on Monday sent a memo to Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim asking him to “immediately” order the arrest of the money changers and speculators who are contributing to “the collapse of the national currency.”

The development comes ahead of a scheduled meeting for the central bank in which measures to improve the Lebanese pound’s value are expected to be taken.

MPs Ghazi Zoaiter and Ali Hassan Khalil on Monday filed a new recusal lawsuit against Beirut port blast investigator Judge Tarek Bitar.

The lawsuit was filed before the Criminal Court of Cassation, with the two lawmakers citing “legitimate suspicion.”

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Sunday announced that he might nominate himself for the presidency should the other parties reject two FPM proposals for consensus.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday threw his support behind the embattled Beirut port blast investigator, Judge Tarek Bitar, calling on him to “continue his work” despite the recusal lawsuits and the latest judicial standoff.