Iraq Elections

[ringmasterrob]

The Iraqi elections are to be held on the 30th Jan; polls open at 7am (4am GMT) and close at 5pm (2pm GMT). If all goes well, the votes will be counted in four or five days and the results will be announced on February 20th by the Electoral Commission. The Iraqi people are voting for a ‘Transitional National Assembly’ which will have 275 members. The seats will be allocated by exact proportional representation. Candidates must be aged 30 or above, every third candidate name must be a woman, parties with militias and current members of armed forces cannot stand for election and neither can former Baath Party senior members (for obvious reasons).

When it is elected the council will firstly elect a ‘State Presidency Council’ which will have a president and two deputies. The council will appoint the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister will appoint his ministers and the assembly will vote on how the government is made-up. The assembly's other main role is to write a draft constitution by 15 August and submit this to referendum by 15 October. Parliamentary elections are due in December. [Plenty more information about the election and the council here 'http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3971635.stm']

This is, of course, assuming all goes to plan. However with the current security threats then around four of Iraq’s 18 provinces may be ‘blocked’ off from voting. There is also the fear that threats from militant groups will keep many Iraqis away from the polling stations for obvious reasons. Some candidates of importance are:

• Iyad Allawi: Iraqi National Accord party (Current Interim Prime Minister)
[Topic with loads of information on Allawi can be found here 'http://thegreatcritic.proboards24.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1098531864']

• Abdel Aziz al-Hakim: United Iraqi Alliance

• Ghazi Yawer: (Current Interim President)

• Ibrahim Jaafari: Islamic Daawa Party

• Ahmed Chalabi: Iraqi National Congress

• Adnan Pachachi: Iraqi Independent Democrats

• Dr Hussein Shahristani: United Iraqi Alliance.

• Massoud Barzani: Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP)

• Jalal Talabani: Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)

[More information about the candidates and their history here 'http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4051977.stm']

Iraqis abroad have been voting since Friday and overnight curfews have been introduced in Iraq itself. Today, borders and airports have closed for three days so the elections can take place. Tomorrow the voting begins at the times stated above; all cars are banned from the roads during the elections. There will be 28,000 voting booths at 5,300 polling stations. If it all goes of as planned, by beginning of March the new Iraqi PM will be appointed and by the end of March the new government will be formed.

There are fears however that many Sunni Muslims will boycott the polls, casting doubt on the end results. The worst case scenario is that an election that lacks legitimacy for a large number of Iraqis could pitch the country towards civil war and territorial break-up, which, considering the huge number of people unsure about whether to vote with security threats, could be a distinct possibility. For the moment though violence continues in the run up to the elections. Some key events today are:

• Violence continued, even in the heavily fortified centre of Baghdad where two Americans died in a rocket attack on the US embassy compound.

• Iraq's interim government has extended by a month the country's state of emergency, giving it the right to impose curfews and restrict movements

• Bush says US forces will stay in Iraq after the election to help the new government train security forces and "establish security"

• UK troops in the southern city of Basra say they have seized explosives and arrested several Iraqis suspected of plotting a bombing campaign

• The Associated Press news agency says the bodies of five Iraqi men, accused of working with the Americans, were found lying in a street in Ramadi.

Please feel free to use this topic to discuss any aspect of the elections, from result predictions to fairness, to update us all on the latest happenings (although please be accurate) or just to ask any relevant questions you think someone here might be able to answer.

[ringmasterrob]

Election chaos is esculating it would seem. A suicide bomber has killed eight people in a Kurdish city near the Iranian border and insurgents have blasted polling stations in eight cities. U.S. tanks and armored vehicles blocked roads and bridges to prevent insurgent movements. Iraqi National Guardsmen, wearing black ski masks to hide their faces, roamed through the capital in SUVs and pickup trucks, machine guns mounted. Police and Iraqi soldiers set up checkpoints and randomly searched cars.

[ringmasterrob]

Today's election developments so far (the polls close in approx. 1 hour 30mins):

• At least six people died when a bomber with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up outside a polling station in eastern Baghdad

• In western Baghdad, a suicide bomber killed at least four others and injured at least six people outside a polling station, and two policemen died in separate suicide attacks on polling stations

• In the capital's Sadr City district, at least four people died and seven were wounded when a mortar struck a polling station

• At least four other people were reported to have died in other attacks in or near the capital

• Explosions were also heard in Basra, Mosul and Baquba - where fighting is reported to have broken out in the south of the city

• The political party of Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has been reprimanded for campaigning past the deadline there.

[HStorm]

I would say that Iyad Allawi is odds-on certain to win with his advantageous position and the US-backing he enjoys. It's what happened with Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan - thanks to his links to Dubya and Dick Cheney through Halliburton he was always sure to win - and now Butcher Iyad, who has extensive links to the CIA and MI6 since Saddam Hussein tried to kill him, has a loaded election in his favour too. The disadvantages the Sunni people are facing in terms of electoral access are only one symptom of a wider problem, but it could lead to greater resentment and violence if they hear any more of Bush and Blair using the elections to congratulate themselves about the 'free society' they've built in Iraq.

On the face of it, the shabby picture of legitimacy the whole process is designed to paint makes the growing violence understandable. Not forgivable or justifiable by any means, but understandable.

[ringmasterrob]

Unsurprisingly, despite 36 deaths, mortar attacks and 9 suicide bombings then the Iraqi elections have been hailed as a success. 8million Iraqis are said to have voted (over 60% of those registered) but there is news that many Sunni polling stations were unable to open, and some that did got only a handful of people voting due to fear. There was apparently a lot of turnout division between Sunni, Shia and Kurdish areas but the electoral comission and George Bush both hailed the election as a rousing success. Bush said the poll was a "great and historical achievement" and that the Iraq people "...have demonstrated the kind of courage that is always the foundation of self-government." Votes will be counted throughout most of next week.

[HStorm]

I've been watching a lot of coverage on the satellite news networks, and after seeing the happy celebrations of people after they got the first chance of their entire lives to take part in some kind of democratic process, I can't deny I was moved and felt real elation.

But whatever Bush's self-congratulatory rhetoric this evening, I reserve judgement over whether it's really been a success until the results are known. (I'll only be confident it's a true success if Allawi loses - that's the only way we can feel fairly sure that the Yanks didn't fix the whole thing. And, assuming the alternative winner is any better, at least we're less likely to have another Ba'athist mass murderer in charge of Iraq...)

[Naselus]

Forgive me for putting a crimp on all this joy, but these elections have been a truly pathetic example of half-baked democracy. Iraq's total population is over 32 million, so only about a third of Iraqi citizens were even registered to vote. If only two thirds of that minority voted, that means only a quarter of Iraq's people voted at all. This is Bush's idea of a triumph of democracy?

[HStorm]

Disagreed.

We have to remember that, as with most populations, somewhere in the region of half the Iraqis are children. Therefore, they're not very likely to have a vote whatever country they're in. (I'm not saying that's the way it should be, by the way, just that it's an issue the whole world has to address, rather than Iraq on its own.) Proportionally, the Iraqi turnout was higher than the USA's or Britain's at their respective most recent General Elections.

My doubt over the election is how open and 'un-rigged' they really were, and what the outcome might be given the nature of some of the candidates

[Naselus]

Not so. The Iraqi turnout was NOT propotionally higher than the UK or US elections in terms of total population. It was higher than either in terms of registered voters. 33% of Americans voted last year. Around 40% of Britons voted in 2001. Iraq only managed 25% of it's total population. Given that currently 40% of Iraqis are under the age of 18 years, that means 35% of the population, while old enough to vote, did not. 10% more than did. Truly, the will of the people has been shown.

It seems higher because of the smaller number of registered voters, but it's still nonsense to claim that they had a high turnout, or that this was a great democratic achievement. If only 40 people are registered to vote, and they all turn out, that gives a 100% turnout, but it's hardly democratic.

[ringmasterrob]

I agree to a degree with what you say Naselus, it's not exactly that democratic election and I would be very surprised if Iyad Allawi didn't come out on top, but I don't know as it is that little of the population. Where are your figures from?

[Naselus]

The 8 million voters figure (and 12 million registered) are from BBC news. The Iraq population figure is from, um, Iraq, really. It's just the size of their population. The rest is all just maths from these simple figures. Oh, and the US election figures come from knowing the turnout (100 million) and the US total population (345 million). The British election turnout is from Newsnight.

This doesn't mean I trust Jeremy Paxman. He looks shifty.

[HStorm]

Well, if election day two weeks ago wasn't good news, today's revelations mean there really is hope after all. To my surprise and considerable joy, not only has Iyad Allawi not won, he's been absolutely thrashed!

The Shia groups headed by Ali Sistani have won the popular vote by a thumping margin, scoring 48%. Here's the main rundown...

Shias: 48%
Kurdish parties: 26%
Iyad Allawi: 14%
Others: 12%

This is not to say that Sistani's morality is anything to write home about, but if the alternative was Allawi, well, we might as well have brought Saddam back.

On a serious note of caution, the condensed distribution of the vote means a clear majority has not been achieved in the new Parliament, but this is still a positive sign.

Thoughts anyone?

[ringmasterrob]

This is in response to our latest member 'offeringisaac' who put it in a new topic, which was deleted as its subject matter belongs in here:

"even in the face of death more people showed up to vote in Iraq than in the last us election which campared to other elections had a huge turnout in and of itself. it seems Iraq has been waiting for this chance for a long time.

and by the way in reading some of the old threads i noticed that no one can fathom that this war was over anything but oil, yet for what the war cost we could have bought all the oil in Iraq! it just doent add up. "

Ignoring the clear violation of the rule 'Make It Readable'

"i noticed that no one can fathom that this war was over anything but oil"

That's just bullshit, it’s not that we can’t fathom the reasoning for the war; it’s that as shown in "Case For War" and "Pretty Straight Guff" by HStorm, the reasoning for the war was flawed and often a blatant lie. May I ask please what YOUR view on the war was? Since you’re basically questioning our ability to comprehend the ‘reasoning’ for the war I think it’s not unfair to ask for you own opinions. As for the ‘this war cost a lot’ argument, that’s bull too but I’ll save the rest until I hear more on WHY you are in favour of the war. Also, forgive me for being dismissive of your post, but I don't feel like stating the reasons we're against the war in detail again when they can be found in several topics throughout the forum. Though you claim to have read them I doubt very much from the comment quoted above that you understood them very well.

[HStorm]

It would be kind of you, Offeringisaac, if you could enlighten us as to the real reasons for war, as you appear to have insights into it that the rest of us do not. Just don't tell us it was about finding Weapons of Mass Destruction, or putting an end to injustice in the Middle East. We've already studied those theories to the ends of the Earth and rejected them, as they stand up to not a moment's scrutiny. Study the relevant threads about the CIA and the war, not to mention the numerous articles available on the homepage...

www.freewebs.com/thecritique/home.htm

[Naselus]

"even in the face of death more people showed up to vote in Iraq than in the last us election which campared to other elections had a huge turnout in and of itself. it seems Iraq has been waiting for this chance for a long time.

This would be lovely if it was true. It's not, though. Less than 25% of Iraqis showed up to vote. A slighty higher proportion of REGISTERED voters turned out than in the US (It was 60% of registered Iraqis, to about 59% of Americans), but only 8 million out of around a 35 million total population actually voted at all. I regard this as a pathetic failure of an election, and regardless of how the Dubya monkey spins it anyone else would too. It's a 25% success rate. Fantastic work, George.

and by the way in reading some of the old threads i noticed that no one can fathom that this war was over anything but oil, yet for what the war cost we could have bought all the oil in Iraq! it just doent add up. "

No, we couldn't. Do you know what an embargo is, at all? Also, Saddam, given twelve years of sanctions and being bombed, probably wasn't feeling particularly like selling anyway.

[mond]

So let me see if I've got these elections straight. The outcome is to determine an interim government who will write a Constitution and then we'll have "real" elections in December that will be a "new" government in total?

Whats the chance of Iraq slipping into Theocracy? Seems that many influential Shite clerics are bidding their time before stirring the masses to support them.

And what do we say? The only thing we can say is that we gave them the opportunity to choose their own government and thats what they did. Even if democracy leads to another authoritarian government?!

[Naselus]

Iraq's probably going to end up as an Islamic fundamentalist theocracy within the next five years. The US will probably try to stop this through the traditional means (rigging elections, setting up coups, overt diplomatic and economic pressure), and if it fails then they'll invade and install some crackpot genocidal dictator. That way they get to start the whole process all over again.

Funny old world, isn't it?

[mond]

It would almost be laughable if it wasn't so serious. The hardest thing in the world is nation building. And when you have such a rampant abuser of power such as the US trying to nation build then its doubly dangerous.

Still the attempt at Democracy may be promoting self-rule in other nations in the Middle East. Perhaps a flow on effect of people questioning their governments isn't a bad thing for them. Only wish it didn't involve so much fundamentalism and terror - or the potential for.

[TheCritique]

Just a small question on the statistics, Naselus.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but you say approximately 25% of the total population of Iraq voted. Would I be correct in assuming this is 25% of the adult population, as opposed to the entire population?

[Naselus]

TheCritique said:

Just a small question on the statistics, Naselus.

Forgive me for being pedantic, but you say approximately 25% of the total population of Iraq voted. Would I be correct in assuming this is 25% of the adult population, as opposed to the entire population?

It was a percentage of total population, as were the US statistics. Bearing in mind Iraq's higher infant mortality rates (due to our wonderful policy of sanctions), and thus it's proportionally higher number of adults compared to children, this actually makes the Iraqi election even LESS successful in comparison to most western democracies.

As for promoting self-rule in the Middle East, they don't want it. They've had it before, and it didn't work for them, thanks. They want theocracies. They want the various countries to hold a common Islamic law as set down by the Quran. This is mostly because when they DID try democracy back in the 70s, Middle Eastern countries found their elections routinely rigged and reduced to a nonsense by... Can you tell who it is yet?.... THE USA!!!!. Hence Ba'athist rule in Syria and Iraq was semented by US cash and support. Osama bin Laden, sickened by the Americans pissing about with Muslim countries, gets hisself some top-notch CIA training and murders 3,000 people. Pakistan kicks democracy in the head as "just a load of old tits, really', and goes for your traditional military dictator (any ruler in a uniform is going to be bad. Let's just admit it right now.). Iran diposes it's Shah and installs a frothing lunitic line of Ayatollas.

The USA cocked the middle East about so much during the cold war that nothing they do now will make it better. The people just can't trust the US, or anything associated with it. including McDonalds, the Alamo, slavery and democratic elections.

[HStorm]

Iraq's interim Government has been dissolved, and the elected assembly has taken up the reins as the country's first 'democratic' permanent Goverment. The new Prime Minister of what Tony Blair has called "The Government of National Unity" is Nouri Malaki, who has pledged a full-on crackdown on terrorism. (We've heard that before of course, but at least this time it's in a country where such a crackdown is actually needed.)

However, a number of key ministerial posts have still not been appointed - alarmingly these included two of the most powerful and important posts in the Government; Minister for the Interior and Minister of Defence. Given the incompleteness of the new administration, and that the ceremonials, including today's visit to Iraq by Blair, proceeded while more terrorist attacks were claiming lives (five were killed in a bomb blast only this morning while Nouri and Blair were giving a press conference), would we say that this 'new start' is all a little hollow, more symbolic than substantial?