Lebanon: touching the void

Nature abhors a vacuum, or so we were all taught at school. 

Politics seems to abhor a vacuum too.  That is why the factions in Lebanon, particularly the Christians, are still frantically trying to find the elusive compromise presidential candidate to fill the void left by President Emile Lahoud's departure last week.  They are afraid that, if they do not fill this Christian-designated office, the sectarian balance will shift against them and in favour of Sunni and Shia Muslim politics.  This is a separate -- if linked -- struggle from the one that pits some Christians and Sunni Muslims (and others) grouped in the governing anti-Syrian coalition against other Christians and Shia Muslims grouped in the pro-Syrian opposition for control of the state.

The vacuum may last for a while -- it looks as if this Friday's scheduled vote will be postponed, like all the others before it.  But the vacuum may continue to exist to some extent even if a candidate is found, since he may of necessity be weak and pliable.  It is this feature that makes Lebanese politics so unstable now, and means that it is less likely to revert to its usual recent cycle of crises but embark on a new and possibly more deadly one… unless Syria enters the vacuum as it did last time this happened nearly 20 years ago.