Lebanese lawmakers elected army chief Joseph Aoun as president on Thursday, ending a more than two-year vacancy and marking a step towards lifting the war-battered country out of financial meltdown.Aoun,

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s new president and former army commander Joseph Aoun has maintained a low profile. Those who know him say he is no-nonsense, kind and averse to affiliating himself with any party or even expressing a political opinion — a rarity for someone in Lebanon’s fractured, transactional political system.

The move fills the vacant presidency with a general who enjoys US approval and showing that Hezbollah's influence in the country has diminished after a devastating war with Israel.