Parliament on Thursday held a seventh session for the election of a new president to no avail, prolonging the political crisis in the country.

As 50 blank votes were cast by Hezbollah and its allies, 42 votes went to MP Michel Mouawad, eight for “New Lebanon”, six went to the academic and historian Issam Khalife, two went to ex-minister Ziad Baroud and one went to jailed Customs chief Badri Daher.

The head of the Finance Parliamentary Committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, announced Wednesday that “remarkable progress” has been made in the discussions related to the establishment of a sovereign fund to manage Lebanon’s offshore oil and gas resources.

The LBP 15,000 dollar exchange rate for fees and taxes on imported goods will enter into effect as of December 1, 2022, caretaker Finance Minister Youssef Khalil said on Wednesday.

Three banks were stormed Wednesday by three depositors in various Lebanese regions.

In the southern city of Tyre, the depositor Reda Reda stormed Bank Audi, demanding money for the treatment of his cancer-stricken mother, the Lebanese Depositors Association said.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea stressed Wednesday that the only way to achieve Lebanon’s “salvation” would be through the election of a “salvation president.”

“The LF is working for the rise of a real state in Lebanon,” Geagea said in a meeting with a Chinese delegation led by Qian Hongshan, a deputy director of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

On behalf of the United States of America, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has extended his “sincerest wishes to the people of Lebanon on their Independence Day,” which Lebanon marks on November 22 each year.

“The Lebanese people are renowned for their rich and dynamic culture, and we recognize the resilience they have exhibited the past 79 years in confronting a series of critical challenges,” Blinken said in a statement.

MP Ahmed al-Kheir of the mainly Sunni National Moderation bloc has lashed out at Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea without naming him, two days before a new presidential election session.

Describing Geagea as “the sponsor of the worst presidential settlement,” in reference to the understanding he reached with Michel Aoun prior to the latter’s election, Kheir accused the LF leader of seeking to install himself as the “spiritual guide of the opposition.”

Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Tuesday lamented that Lebanon is celebrating its 79th Independence Day amid “a presidential vacuum and legitimate concerns over the present and the future.”

The official exchange rate for the Lebanese lira against the dollar and circulars 151 and 158 of the central bank will be hiked to LBP 15,000 as of February 1, 2023, Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh has confirmed.

French President Emmanuel Macron will discuss the Lebanese file with his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden during an upcoming visit to Washington that will take place in two weeks from now, a senior French source said.

Asked whether Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil had proposed any solution for the presidential election crisis during his latest visit to Paris, the source told Annahar newspaper that Bassil did not suggest any exit.