January 10, 2005

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  IRAQ ELECTIONS

  
  

  Sunni Arabs are going to boycott elections. It's not about religion or fatwas or any of that so much as the principle of holding elections while you are under occupation. People don't really sense that this is the first stepping stone to democracy as western media is implying. Many people sense that this is just the final act of a really bad play. It's the tying of the ribbon on the "democracy parcel" we've been handed. It's being stuck with an occupation government that has been labeled 'legitimate' through elections.
  
  We're being bombarded with cute Iraqi commercials of happy Iraqi families preparing to vote. Signs and billboards remind us that the elections are getting closer...
  
  Can you just imagine what our history books are going to look like 20 years from now?
  
  "The first democratic elections were held in Iraq on January 29, 2005 under the ever-watchful collective eye of the occupation forces, headed by the United States of America. Troops in tanks watched as swarms of warm, fuzzy Iraqis headed for the ballot boxes to select one of the American-approved candidates..."
  
  There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don't know the candidates. They aren't making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated.
  
  Another problem is the selling of ballots. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran.

  
  

  Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male."

  
  

  More at Baghdad Burning

  
  

   

  • 6:34 pm
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