section_path: Office/Qualifications
section_name: Qualifications
paragraph_text: Qualifications
  
  The constitution requires the president hold the same qualifications as a member of Parliament (also called the Chamber of Deputies), which are Lebanese citizenship and attainment of the age of twenty-one years.
  
  Though not specifically stated in the constitution, an understanding known as the National Pact, agreed in 1943, customarily limits the office to members of the Maronite Christian community. This is based on a gentlemen's agreement between Lebanon's Maronite Christian president Bechara El Khoury and his Sunni Muslim prime minister Riad Al Solh, which was reached in 1943, when Lebanon became independent of France, and described that the president of the Republic was to be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of Parliament a Shia Muslim.
  
  Article 50 of the constitution of Lebanon requires the president to take an oath upon assuming office, which is prescribed thus:
  
  I swear by Almighty God to observe the Constitution and the laws of the Lebanese Nation and to maintain the independence of Lebanon and its territorial integrity.