IRAQ: ELECTIONS

Juan Cole: Iraq Election - A Mixed Story

"The Iraqis did not know the names of the candidates for whom they were supposedly voting. What kind of an election is anonymous!"

"This thing was more like a referendum than an election. It was a referendum on which major party list associated with which major leader would lead parliament.'

"Many of the voters came out to cast their ballots in the belief that it was the only way to regain enough sovereignty to get American troops back out of their country."


I'm just appalled by the cheerleading tone of US news coverage of the so-called elections in Iraq on Sunday. I said on television last week that this event is a "political earthquake" and "a historical first step" for Iraq. It is an event of the utmost importance, for Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. All the boosterism has a kernel of truth to it, of course. Iraqis hadn't been able to choose their leaders at all in recent decades, even by some strange process where they chose unknown leaders. But this process is not a model for anything, and would not willingly be imitated by anyone else in the region. The 1997 elections in Iran were much more democratic, as were the 2002 elections in Bahrain and Pakistan.