Cabinet called off on Wednesday the intermediate official exams (Brevet) for this year, approved the pending promotion of security and military officers, and renewed the UNIFIL's mandate for another year, in a session boycotted by the Free Patriotic Movement.

Cabinet also passed a decree that would turn civil defense volunteers into full-timers after years of service.

Hamadeh says Democratic Gathering open to ‘other candidates’

MP Marwan Hamadeh of the Democratic Gathering on Tuesday said he does not expect French presidential envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian to carry any solution “formula” during his visit to Lebanon.

Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab, who had suggested early parliamentary elections to solve the presidential crisis, said that the idea was his.

"No one has encouraged me to propose early elections," Bou Saab told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Tuesday, denying that Speaker Nabih Berri or Hezbollah had instructed him to do it, "as some people have imagined."

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has said that neither his party nor the defiance and opposition forces can secure the needed votes for their presidential candidate.

"The only way is consensus," Bassil said in a televised interview, after lawmakers failed last week for a 12th time to elect a new president.

Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah defended Monday a legislative session boycotted by 29 opposition and independent MPs.

"Without this session, public sectors employees couldn't have received their salaries," Fadlallah said.

Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has visited Qatar to discuss the Lebanese presidential file with Qatari officials, media reports said.

The Qataris, encouraged by the U.S., suggested again the nomination of Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun during their meeting with Bassil on Sunday, al-Akhabar newspaper said.

French President Emmanuel Macron's new special envoy for Lebanon heads to Beirut on Wednesday as France seeks a new push to end a political crisis that has left the country without a president for over half a year, a diplomatic source said.

Former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, appointed by Macron to the role earlier this month, is to fly to Beirut on Wednesday, the source told AFP, asking not to be named.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea has suggested that the Hezbollah-led camp “wants to impose the election of Suleiman Franjieh as president, or else it will continue to obstruct the electoral process indefinitely.”

“This camp will not allow electoral sessions in the near future,” Geagea said, in an interview with Lebanon’s French-language daily L'Orient-Le Jour’.

Parliament on Monday approved to open a line of credit to fund public sector salaries in a session boycotted by 29 opposition MPs.

The Free Patriotic Movement attended the session after it said in a statement that it would only attend urgent sessions, while 29 MPs, including independent MPs and MPs from the Lebanese Forces, the Kataeb party and the Tajaddod bloc boycotted the session.

Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Saturday criticized the MPs who walked out of Wednesday's presidential election session, saying they prevented the electoral process from taking its "constitutional and democratic course."