BEIRUT: Thousands of Free Patriotic Movement supporters flooded into Martyrs’ Square in Downtown Beirut Friday to exert pressure on the government to meet the party’s demands for a bigger Christian say in running the country’s affairs.

The massive demonstration was the latest in the FPM’s stepped-up campaign against the government to protest what the party dubbed “marginalization of Christian rights” in the public administration.

The demonstrators demanded a new electoral law and parliamentary and presidential elections.

FPM leader MP Michel Aoun did not attend the rally, but spoke briefly to the crowd through a huge screen from his residence in Rabieh.

Addressing the rally, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, renewed the FPM’s demands for regaining Christian rights and partnership in the government’s decision-making.

“We want equality in duties and rights in this state. We in the FPM will deprive those who deprive us of our rights,” Bassil, who was recently elected unopposed as the FPM’s new chief, told the cheering crowd.

“We want to be equal in the state. We don’t want those who pay electricity [bills] and don’t get it, while those who do not pay are getting it and blocking roads. We can block roads if we are deprived of our rights,” he said.

“We do not want the Lebanese to resort to outside [powers] to seek protection. Partnership and assurances can secure stability. Countries that exert tutelage cannot secure stability without the will of the Lebanese,” he added.

“We will not accept a [weak] president … or a subservient prime minister,” he added.

Referring to the political deadlock that has left Lebanon without a president for more than 15 months, Bassil said: “We want a free president elected by his people and whose decisions stem from his popular and constitutional strength.

“We want a clean-handed president who does not cover corruption but fights it.

“We want a state where Parliament does not extend its term and violates prerogatives.We dream of a state where the judiciary will protect us and where there is security and strength in its army.

“Our dream will win over the nightmares,” Bassil added, emphasizing that his party “will not alienate Muslims, but will also not accept the alienation of Christians.”

Aoun, who is jockeying for the presidency backed by Hezbollah and its March 8 allies, is calling for a new electoral law based on proportional representation and parliamentary elections to be followed by presidential polls. He has called for electing a president by a popular vote as a way of breaking the presidential impasse.

FPM supporters carried Aoun’s pictures and banners praising him. “At your service, oh General,” read one of the banners, in reference to Aoun. “We want new elections emanating from a fair election law,” read another.

At the end of Bassil’s speech, Aoun, speaking from his home via video link, saluted the crowd.

“You, the great people of Lebanon, I am proud of you today and I will remain proud because you have preserved the Free Patriotic Movement,” he said.

“I hope this will be the beginning to reform our country and bring it back to its glorious past,” Aoun said.

The rally comes as the FPM’s ministers are locked in a dispute with Prime Minister Tammam Salam over the issue of security and military appointments and the Cabinet’s decision-making system in the absence of the president.

The FPM has protested the recent extension of the terms of the Army’s top brass.

The rally also comes amid a wave of anti-government protests in central Beirut staged by civil groups to protest the government’s failure to resolve an ongoing trash crisis and rampant corruption. Protests have grown beyond the garbage crisis and now target the entire political class and the country’s sectarian-based political system.

Bassil promised that he would seek the “return of all the refugees and displaced people to their homelands, so that Lebanon survives.

“The FPM is gathered today in Martyrs’ Square, but we will soon exhort its supporters to join us in the people’s palace in Baabda,” he said.

“The tsunami will return. The future is for us and not for others. We want electricity, water, oil, gas and an electoral law to represent us and to elect a president,” Bassil added.

The demonstration also attracted a number of Hezbollah supporters, one of whom waved the party’s yellow flag, while a veiled woman carried a picture of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.

However, the FPM’s rally was criticized by the Cabinet member from the Marada Movement, an ally of Aoun. “This kind of protest in this political period will not lead to the required goal,” Culture Minister Rony Areiji said.