BEIRUT – Thousands of supporters of Lebanon’s Free Patriotic Movement have descended in convoys on the capital’s downtown district to protest against what they consider to be the marginalization of Christian rights in the country, as well as the extension of the terms of top army commanders.

Early on Wednesday evening, cars decked out in the signature orange color of the majority-Christian party, the FPM, arrived from different areas of the country and took over the streets heading towards the downtown district of Beirut after its leader, former general Michel Aoun, called for mass mobilization.

Cars could be seen blocking the highway from Tripoli to Beirut amid a heavy security presence.

Samir Moqbel, the defense minister, last week extended the terms of Lebanon’s three top army positions, including that of army chief Jean Qahwaji, for another year.

Usually such extensions can only be made by the president, and should otherwise be voted on by cabinet, but Lebanon has been without a president since may of 2014 and parliament has so far been unable to vote for a new one.

The disagreement is mostly about Kahwaji, who has passed retirement age. Aoun’s son-in-law Chamel Roukoz is among the leading candidates to replace him.

Gaby Issa, a Lebanese American supporter of the FPM, said renewing the term of security officials by a single minister is illegitimate.

“FPM supporters took to the streets to tell the 14 March ministers that you can’t change the constitution and interpret it according to your own demands,” Issa told The Arab American News. “The renewals were a provocation. The government cannot operate without the consent of an essential part of Lebanese society.”

He said Roukoz had long been a top commander in the army, before he married Aoun’s daughter.