Beirut Although Free Patriotic Movement tenors defended the proposal to amend the Lebanese Constitution to allow presidents to be popularly elected, leading Christian parties buried the stillborn draft, arguing that it is neither democratic nor responsible. General Michel Aoun’s Christian rivals, led by the Phalange Party and the Lebanese Forces (LF), wasted little time to label the plan as being “destructive” [Former President Amine Gemayel], and “emptying the presidency from a Christian political presence,” [LF deputy Fadi Karam].

The proposal, which was initially put forth by Aoun on June 30 before deputy Ibrahim Kanaan resurrected it last week, stood little or no chance in parliament. Two months ago, March 14 coalition leaders dismissed the general’s last gasp as a poor attempt to meddle with the Constitution, to serve his brazen ambitions. In the event, any constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority of the 128-member legislature, which cannot be secured by March 8 coalition votes at this time.

Irrespective of intense debates within the divided Maronite community, which Cardinal Rai allowed to fester by adopting contradictory policies after his accession to head the Patriarchate, and despite Speaker Nabih Berri’s recent conclusion that the Lebanese wasted valuable opportunities to elect a head-of-state without foreign intervention, the Druze za‘im (strongman) Walid Junblatt revealed over the weekend that he, along with Berri and Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, were hard at work to “reach a settlement to end the [presidential] deadlock.”

Local papers quoted Berri on Monday saying that he could not possibly “talk about any possible progress to guarantee the success of the work” under way, although he mercifully ended the Aoun proposal to amend the constitution. According to Berri, such an initiative could only be made during an “ordinary legislative session” and that “parliament [was] now in an extraordinary round,” whose only duty was to elect a president.

What the Speaker did not comment on were allegations that he and former Prime Minister Saad Hariri reportedly discussed a “logical settlement” during the latter’s visit to Beirut a few weeks ago, ostensibly to end the current presidential deadlock by agreeing on fresh personalities. In other words, Berri and Hariri, presumably along with Nasrallah and Junblatt, talked about individuals other than the two declared candidates, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea and Progressive Socialist Party deputy Henri Helou, as well as the non-declared Aoun.

Under such a scheme, Aoun would “agree on a personality who is capable of protecting the political understanding,” while some of the names that were floated during these “seminars” included former Minister Jean Obeid and Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji.

For now, the boycott in parliament, which is aimed at preventing Geagea from reaching the country’s top Christian post, continued. Given this stalemate, attention was likely to revert to a postponement of parliament’s term after November 20, 2014, with the Future Movement in favor of a “technical extension,” which may mean a strict linkage of the extension to the election of a new president. In other words, Future preferred to approve an extension that expired with the election of a president, though that was easier said than done.

At the rate Lebanese politicians compromised, and come November, chances were excellent that, in addition to the presidential vacuum, parliament could experience a void of its own, which would only leave the Cabinet relatively unscathed.