Perhaps because the problems seem so intractable, or perhaps because there is little real disagreement between the main parties, the contest is strangely bloodless.
But the coup turned out to be bloodless.
He described how governors in one school "wanted to replace the head with a Muslim head"; in another that "staff and governors were in an alliance to destabilise the head"; and in another school he described events as a "bloodless coup".
Measured but never bloodless, ranging from skittish to melancholy, it was a fittingly virtuoso way to close an evening that underlined the Academy's reputation for musical excellence.
However, last Monday's action was the latest in a string of independent decisions taken by Sheikh Hamad since he became the ruler in a bloodless coup against his father in 1995.
(Her speech was, on the whole, mechanical and bloodless – still the impression continues that she has no real passion for this part of her portfolio).
No longer will it emerge from the bloodless bunker of the White House situation room with its steely computer lists of military hardware and images of projected targets.
Undertone, Sat GT Under the banner "music + art + technology", Convergence offers a mix that's notoriously tricky, with the twin dangers of pointless visuals and bloodless music.
The near defeat also led to wider warning for Labour to show more courage and run less bloodless campaigns.
A lesson was absorbed by ambitious politicians: opposition to the death penalty looked bloodless and out-of-touch.
But ten days after he re-took control of it, in the wake of the relatively bloodless uprising that forced the Taliban out, Mr Khan still has the air of a chief, not a politician.Both his Sunni ethnic-Tajik supporters and the minority Hazaras who claim Mongol descent and are mostly Shias are demanding the political spoils of the military campaign.
