Seoul, Korea: Speaking to the Kuwaiti Al Anba newspaper on Sunday, Bishop Boulos Matar — who fills the important Beirut Maronite Church post and is well connected across the political spectrum — rejected media-fuelled calls to elect a president to a two-year term of office.

Matar refuted claims that Bkirki, the Seat of the Maronite Church, had anything to do with the alleged proposal and said there were several attempts to drag the name of the patriarchate into the debate.

On April 23, 2016, the Saudi Okaz daily reported that two unnamed, but presumably leading political parties — believed to be Future and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) — held serious conversations that called for the election of the Free Patriotic Movement’s Michel Aoun to the post “for a two-year period.”

Earlier, the former Speaker of Parliament, Hussein Husseini, pleaded with political elites to place their political differences aside and elect a head-of-state for a one-year term, although the recommendation by one of the fathers of the Ta’if Accords fell on deaf ears.

Bishop Matar insisted that Speaker Husseini was responsible for introducing changes in the president’s term, not Bkirki. While Husseini was a highly respected leader and although Matar believed that the emeritus official had good intentions when he made his proposal, the move was not acceptable. “Bkirki seeks the election of a head-of-state as soon as possible and for a full term, not a diminished one,” he said. He also told Al Anba’ that “the shortening of the term of the president violates the dignity of the Lebanese presidency.”

Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended on May 24, 2014, without the election of a successor.

Ironically, the reason why Lebanese Forces’ Samir Geagea was not elected when Parliament convened on April 23, 2014 — when a first-round victory required two-thirds of MPs casting ballots, or 86 votes — was because of the surprise candidacy of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP). At the time, Geagea received 48 votes, the PSP’s Henri Helou 16 votes and Amine Gemayel one vote, while 52 parliamentarians cast blank ballots and seven were voided for fantasy names. Most of the 52 blank votes, composed of March 8 deputies, wanted Aoun who could not field the necessary votes to win either. Since then, the Hezbollah-led March 8 alliance has refused to ensure a quorum, for a record 38 sessions and counting.

In fact, ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps have thwarted the polls, although the PSP’s Walid Junblatt dropped a political bombshell on Saturday when he declared that he no longer opposed the election of Aoun for the top state post if the other March 8 candidate, and former Minister Saad Hariri’s nominee, Suleiman Franjieh, was ready to withdraw from the race.

“I don’t oppose the election of Aoun for the presidency if the national interest requires it, and if Franjieh withdraws from the race,” Junblatt told the Arabic news website elaph. It was unclear what motivated Junblatt at this late hour although the wily Druze chieftain was probably aware that the current freeze prevented the election of a head-of-state anytime soon. Franjieh has gone on record to say he has no intention to withdraw.

According to Junblatt, Franjieh’s chances were as good as Aoun’s or Helou’s to reach the Baabda Palace, although it was increasingly difficult to see how any one of the three could possibly win.