Lebanon remains without a president, three days after Emile Lahoud left office on Friday when his term expired. Lebanon is now without a head of state for the first time since the Lebanon civil war. Parliament has scheduled a vote to choose a new president at the end of the week, but the vote has already been postponed five times. On Sunday, the Lebanese group Hezbollah blamed US interference for the parliament’s inability to elect a president and demanded that the next head of state support Hezbollah’s right to fight against Israel. Hezbollah’s deputy leader, Sheikh Naim Qassem, said, “We want a president who believes in national participation and in the right to defend one’s land and protect its people.”