Damascus: Loyalists of President Michel Aoun have raised eyebrows in Lebanon yet again this time by floating the idea of extending his mandate, which ends in October 2022.
The idea has been making the rounds for weeks, in closed circles however, without ever being discussed openly until last week, when it was floated on television by MP Maroun Aoun, a relative of the octogenarian president and member of his Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).
Members of the FPM immediately jumped on the proposal, describing it as the logical thing to do in order to avoid a presidential vacuum in October 2022. The only alternative to Aoun ought to be his son-in-law Gibran Basil, head of the FPM who has an open ambition of replacing his father-in-law at the Baabda Palace.