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It'll soon be time, at last, to vote

onthebottom

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Jan 10, 2002
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Good article from my favorite source:

It'll soon be time, at last, to vote

Jan 13th 2005

Though the election will be boycotted by many or even most Sunni Arabs, it should still offer Kurds and Shia Arabs a rare chance to choose their own leaders

AT LEAST in those parts of Iraq where the insurgents do not dominate, the election campaign has begun in earnest. Posters plaster the walls, at any rate in the Shia and Kurdish areas that contain a good three-quarters of the country's people. And though full lists of candidates' names are hard to find—and in some cases have yet to be drawn up (see our table)—Iraqis are gradually becoming aware of the main choices of party alliances and leaders on offer when some 5,500 polling stations open on January 30th. It is increasingly likely that turnout in the Sunni Arab areas, especially in the four out of 18 provinces most afflicted by the insurgency, will be dismally low. Nonetheless, most Kurds (who make up a fifth of the people) and Shias (some three-fifths) sound determined to vote.

Some groups, most notably the Iraqi List headed by the interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, are zealously soliciting votes, through the media, at press conferences and—most expensively—on pan-Arab satellite TV channels. At a recent Iraqi List “seminar� for (mainly Arab) journalists in a Baghdad suburb, activists for Mr Allawi's group handed each reporter who was kind enough to attend a one-hundred-dollar note in appreciation.

Other prominent groups are claiming to have the blessing of the country's top religious leaders. In particular, the United Iraqi Alliance, a broad coalition of Shia parties, most of them Islamist-inclined, has covered Baghdad's buildings with portraits of well-known ayatollahs alongside its logo. And a daring few candidates are braving the pavement, such as Fathallah Ismail, a disciple of the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who charges headlong across the bustling crossroads of north-east Baghdad's Shia slums, handing out cards that puff his Nationalist Independent Cadres and Elites.

The Sunni Arab insurrection, which shows no sign of abating, has made campaigning in large parts of Iraq too dangerous. Even Mr Allawi now admits that people in “some pockets� of the country will not be able to vote. Fearful that their candidates will be assassinated, most of the main groups are not disclosing most of the names on their slates, beyond a few well-known figures. So voters are unsure of what many—maybe most—of the 84 parties and alliances and 27 individuals on the ballot actually stand for and, in many cases, who is running for them.

In the most violent regions, Iraqis may wait until election day before deciding whether to vote at all. More than 1m Iraqi expatriates in 14 countries, including the United States, various European states, Iran, and across the Arab world, have also been allowed to vote in special polling stations abroad. In Iraq, the Americans are hoping for a turnout of more than half of the 15m-odd eligible voters. Anything bigger than that will be deemed a success.

The outcome is highly unpredictable. The nearest thing to a certainty is that the Kurdistan Alliance, a joint list combining the Kurds' two main parties and a clutch of minnows, will sweep the Kurdish north-east—and may well give the Kurds a disproportionate number of seats since their turnout, in the safest part of Iraq, is likely to be the highest. Parties representing Iraq's Christians, Turkomen (ethnic Turks), Yazidis (who follow a creed close to a Roman-era cult) and other minorities may pick up a few seats: all a party needs, to win a seat in the 275-strong assembly, is 1/275th of the total vote.

The main battle, however, is being waged between the Alliance (widely known as “the Shia house� or “the clerics' list�) and Mr Allawi's lot. A few weeks ago, it was assumed that the Alliance would gobble up most of the Shia vote. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shia cleric, had played a notable part in creating the Alliance. Mr Allawi's allies, however, point out that Mr Sistani has not explicitly endorsed it, and they have fiercely attacked the Alliance's adherents for—allegedly—telling Shia voters that they have a religious obligation to vote for it.

cont.....

OTB
 

onthebottom

Never Been Justly Banned
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Cont.....

By contrast, campaigners for Mr Allawi's Iraqi List are promoting his personality, lauding a reputation for toughness that is said to appeal to Iraqis fed up with the violence and strife. This seems to be going down better than expected. Preliminary results of an opinion poll in Baghdad and the Shia south found that 22% may vote for Mr Allawi's group versus 27% for the Alliance. Mr Allawi did even better as an individual, polling at 35% against 11% for his closest competitor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Dawa Party, probably the Alliance's strongest component.

If most Sunnis in rebellious areas seem highly unlikely to vote, the prospect for places such as Sadr City, home to some 1m poor Shias in eastern Baghdad, where followers of Mr Sadr fought fiercely against the Americans last year, is still in doubt. In any event, Mr Sadr's movement is split between pragmatists who want to win a modicum of power by co-operating with the new order and a more militant wing that prefers messianic declarations and last stands. Mr Sadr himself has yet to endorse any list, and many of his followers say they will not vote unless their lender takes a stand.

It will be hard, if not impossible, to fathom the Sunni Arabs' electoral wishes. The most prominent Sunni Arab partner in Mr Allawi's government, the Iraqi Islamic Party, pulled out of the race after calling in vain for a delay. This leaves the field to liberal Sunnis like Adnan Pachachi of the Iraqi Independent Democrats, who may pick up votes from secular-leaning Iraqis in parts of Baghdad where it is safe enough to go to the polls, and to Sunnis with strong tribal links, such as those of the interim president, Ghazi al-Yawer, and his powerful Shammar tribe. A rich businessman with tribal ties in western Iraq, Saad al-Janabi, is running on an anti-occupation platform that seems designed to win votes from sympathisers of the insurgents.

An unSunni outlook

So Mr Allawi, the Kurds and the Alliance look likely to split the lion's share of seats. Until a few weeks ago, Mr Allawi seemed to have a good chance of staying on as prime minister, largely because he lacked a base of his own and seemed not to threaten the main Kurdish and Islamist-minded Shia parties. But now that he may be emerging as a force in his own right, the Alliance may feel it should press for a prime ministerial candidate of its own: perhaps Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who is close to Mr Sistani, or the finance minister, Adel Abd al-Mahdi.

Iraq's Arab, Turkish and Iranian neighbours all seem minded to give the emerging assembly and the government it endorses a chance to establish itself. Though the UN has played but a small part in the proceedings, a better-than-expected election might encourage the international body to become more involved in Iraq's next step towards building a democracy.

Most crucial of all, however, is the degree to which Iraqis have the courage to vote. If they do in large numbers, despite the expected Sunni stay-away, that might give the new order a sense of legitimacy it has hitherto woefully lacked.

OTB
 

WoodPeckr

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Team Bush taking another View on Elections

Reuters reports the 'Bush League' is not so optimistic on those upcoming elections after all.
Or as Paul Harvey used to say....."Here is the rest of the story......."

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Unable to deliver on its lofty goal of bringing democracy to Iraq through the Jan. 30 elections, the Bush administration is pressing a damage-control campaign to lower expectations for the vote.

With fears for a low voter turnout among Sunni Arabs due to a boycott and insurgents' intimidation, the administration no longer touts the elections as a catalyst to spread democracy across the Arab world.

Instead, U.S. officials now emphasize the political process that will follow the vote.

"Clearly, we don't see the election itself as a pivotal point," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told NPR on Friday. "It's the beginning of a process, the process where Iraqis will write a constitution and at the end of the year will actually vote for a permanent government."

Almost two years after Operation Iraqi Freedom, a raging insurgency across mainly Sunni areas forced the White House this week to prepare the American public for elections it called "less than perfect."

For months, the Bush administration has been steadily lowering expectations over the vote, beginning with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in September warning violent areas of the country might be excluded.

And with just two weeks to go, the administration acknowledges that despite military offensives meant to provide security for the vote, the fear of bullets and bombs will keep many for the 20 percent Sunni minority away from the ballot box.

Rather than ushering in Iraq's first free and fair national elections for decades, the Bush administration has now limited its ambition for a vote it refuses to postpone.

"I think a successful election will be an election where most of the population has gotten a chance to vote, and even though we may not get the same kind of numbers in the Sunni area, we're going to have to go forward and use the results of this election to build on," Secretary of State Colin Powell told PBS.

Powell has lobbied the Shi'ites, who were oppressed under former President Saddam Hussein by the dominant Sunnis, to include the disenfranchised Sunnis in the government after they overwhelmingly win the skewed vote.

But the top U.S. diplomat acknowledged such maneuvering also risked inflaming the insurgency.

"The insurgency is not going away as a result of this election. In fact, perhaps, the insurgents might become more emboldened," Powell said.

GIVING DEMOCRACY A BAD NAME

Critics of the administration's Iraq policy complain the elections for a 275-member assembly that should draw up a constitution and pick a transitional government are so flawed they will be illegitimate -- and counterproductive for democracy in the region.

"These elections are a joke," said Juan Cole, a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Michigan.

"The Bush administration has created the worst possible advertisement for democracy because the perception across the Middle East is that democracy means you get a country where everything is out of control," he said.

Before the vote, the administration "has definitely gone into damage-control mode," Stephen Zunes, a politics professor at the University of San Francisco said.

"Once their original rationale (to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction) fell apart, they created very high expectations for democracy to be able to justify their takeover," he said. "Now that they have ended up with a not particularly good demonstration of democracy, they are forced to lower the public's expectations for these elections."

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
 

langeweile

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Sep 21, 2004
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There is a lot of talk about those elections.

Will those elections be perfect? Hell no. The USA with it's 250 years of free elections, doesn't have a perfect system.
Willl all people that want to vote, get a chance to vote? No way.
Will the Sunni's vote? Who cares. Freedom to vote means the freedom not to vote.

Hey, it is a first step. This is more about symbolism, than about a perfect vote.
Give those guys some credit, so many people are trying really hard to make it work. Some of them pay with their lives to get this off. Don't these people deserve our admiration and support? Instead of the bickering and negativism?
 

langeweile

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Sep 21, 2004
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I believe you are not giving the Iraqis enough credit.
Best case scenario they have a government that is representative of everybody. This is quiet possible.

Worse case scenario...maybe civil war, maybe a divided country for the time being.

I for once believe that these people are very much like everybody else. Most people want to live in peace and want to enjoy the good life.
Family, house, children, work, money, car, vacations...etc.etc. sooner or later these things will happen.
 
Jan 24, 2004
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The Vegetative State
I just heard on Global that 60% of Iraqis are under the impression that they are voting for a President - they will be, in fact, be voting for constituents of a National Assembly.

The report also noted that the Coalition will be restricting traffic in the lead up to the election and not revealing the location of some polling stations until just hours before they open...

Ah well - why should their elections be any more democratic than ours?
 
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