The Arab uprisings are affecting Lebanese electoral law choices. Lebanese Christian parties in the March 14 coalition believe that if the Christian vote is not “liberated,” an electoral “massacre” will ensue.

The major Lebanese Christian parties surprised their Muslim allies, especially Sunnis and Druze, when they opted for a parliamentary election law based on each sect choosing its own MPs.

Their move shook the opposition (the March 14 coalition) and reflected historical fears and dashed hopes. Those hopes were raised by the Arab Spring and dashed by the arrival of religious extremists to power in post-revolutionary Arab countries, from Tunisia to Libya and Egypt — the perennial vanguard Arab state — and to Syria, the country that was ruled by iron-fisted secular familial dictatorships but where the rebels, whose main factions have taken an Islamist orientation, have not yet reached power.

The events and developments in Syria are having a much bigger effect on Lebanon than on any other Arab country. The Syrian revolution broke out on Mar. 15, 2011, when a group of children wrote slogans on the city walls in Daraa. At the time, many Lebanese politicians, especially those in the March 14 opposition, thought that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime would collapse within weeks, or a few months at the most. Almost two years later, they realized that their conclusion was rushed and that the world has started dealing with the Syrian crisis as a long-winded civil war that they have to live with.