An Average Iraqi Look at Possible Winners
By Hassan Posted in User Blogs — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Promoted from Diaries by Thomas. Because we're not talking about the Iraqi Elections enough, and because this matters, folks.
Well, on this post I find it hard to be speaking for the Average Iraqi. Since no one knows what he want to vote for. Or else, the whole point of the elections will be gone. So what I am going to do, is put the names of the most popular lists, and what I think about them.
Well, on this post I find it hard to be speaking for the Average Iraqi. Since no one knows what he want to vote for. Or else, the whole point of the elections will be gone. So what I am going to do, is put the names of the most popular lists, and what I think about them.
Unified Iraqi Coalition. Vote number 555: This list is very popular in southern Iraq, and mostly between Shias. But this list has a LOT of problems and bombs in it. If you check one of my previous posts where I listed the names of organizations and politician figures in each coalition. You can see the names under this coalitions. I would like to mention that all those names are Shias. This list is exclusively for Shias. I am not trying to propaganda against it, but seriously, who will represent the Kurds or Sunnis or any other minority. Who will represent the Average Iraqi. If that list is elected in Baghdad, I have to say that our lives might be very difficult. This list might do great to represent Najaf or Karbala, with it's Shia majority, but surely not the one for Baghdad, Sunni provinces, or Kurdistan. If this list gets more than 50% of the chairs. It will rule everything, and I have a feeling Iraq will be like a second Iran then. Needless to say, I am not giving them my votes.
Tawafoq Iraqi Front. Vote number 618: This list is probably representing the majority of Sunnis in Iraq. Better than the previous one since it has some Shia and Kurd members in it. Actually this is a very good list for Anbar and Mosul, with their Sunni majority, but still there are people who can represent Shias, Kurds, and even Christians. Although this list is better than the last one, but in my opinion, they will run things in a very similar way that Taliban used to do in Afghanistan. So I am not voting for this one either.
National Iraqi List. Vote number 731. This list is not supported by any religious faction, since it is mostly secular. That is why in my opinion, I think it will work for anyplace, since they do the representing in a politician view point instead of a religious, or in my eyes, racist way. Although I want Islam to be involved somehow in the system, but the way the two previous lists are doing it, is not my favorite. One more thing about this list, the 555 guys hate it very much. One more reason for me to vote for it.
Kurdistani Gathering. Vote number 730. This list has all the big shots of Kurdistan. Makes it perfect to represent the northern Iraq, or as they call it, Kurdistan. I have to say I am not very familiar with this list, they do not do a lot of publicizing in Baghdad, I think they are concentrating on the places where they can win. But from the names of the participants, I can see that there are a few Islamic and Turks in it. So as I said, perfect for northern Iraq.
The next post, which I am writing now, will be describing how Baghdad looks during the day before the elections. Also I will tell you some stories about elections that happened.
Hassan is a brave soul, excited about what is going on in his country, and proud to be able to speak about it freely for the first time in his young life. His story here is also posted over at noendbutvictory.com, and while I am not going to shamelessly solicit anyone go there, I will share here what is starting to come to us live from Iraq as the election unfolds. All names removed:
"Last night, as on October 15, the celebrating has begun in Iraq Kurdistan, especially in Sulimenyia, they drive around honking and much celebration. ... there were more people out in the streets "celebrating" than on October 15 (concerning the important constitution). I was there in October and the number was moderate. It seems the Iraqi Kurds have put more emphasis on this election"..
Kurdistan is VERY active right now. Another extract:
"In Iraq Kurdistan, Sulimenyia, excitement and celebration is high, tonight the streets are full of people (as you can see from the photos). Patients at the hospitals are voting, staff has to wait until the 15th. Many Kurdish people are upset with al-Jaafari trying to remove status of the Peshmerga. He has made an enemy with trying to pass this. Mosul has lost many residents. There are reports that there are not enough voting booths if any at all. Both the Kurds and the Assyrians are upset. (this is rumor, I have not heard concrete reports in Mosul). Kirkuk was showing at one point that many Kurds were taken off the list and then reinstated? Something is wrong down there. Finally, the power is still bad and it is wonder they can make the elections."
And for anyone here doubting what SOME Iraqis feel about our soldiers and the sacrifice they have made on behalf of their Country, this (which makes even ME well up):
"As iraqi we are hungry for democracy and by the name of all iraqis i say we appretiate what american soldgers did for us to liberate from bad dictator and Baath party ,and each blood drop of american soldgers shed in the field of the battle will not go with out victory on dark souls and brains ,and now seeds of each drops they shed comming up from the ground and yelling at us and we hearing them they say go to vote let our soul rest and make us happy ,and we do that we go we go we go,(thats the opinion of most iraqi people)".
I don't care if anyone here goes to the nebv site personally, but you owe it to yourselves to watch this unfold and spread the words that our media won't: the elections are happening, the people are participating, the concerns and complaints sound eerily like our own in US election cycles; Iraq is being born anew as a young democracy, and our soldiers and our President, and the brave men and women in Iraq are seeing their efforts and sacrifices finally begin to bear fruit. May God bless them and be with them.
What a democractic Iraq needs to come up with is some way of being "Islamic" without bowing to a particular brand of Islam (since none is in the majority) or squashing religious minorities.
How do they do that? Beats me. Our various brands of Christianity and Judiasm managed to have an uneasy peace around a "civil religion" that no one liked but everyone could live with; at least until that uneasy peace was shattered about 40 years ago by the Warren Court.
If Iraq could come up with something like that pre-Warren concensus, it might be a model for the rest of the Arab world.
A few questions for Hassan, or anyone else with better knowledge than me. In my understanding, 731 is advocating a revision of the de-Baathification process. Is this strictly in terms of re-absorbing former military officers or politically as well? Has Allawi himself endorsed this policy? Can you give us a sense of how university students and faculty are thinking? 731 includes the Iraqi Communist Party and a socialist faction - any strength within the alliance?
Here's something a bit off-topic, but still good news. Iraqis are a bit more optimistic about their future than the media and the majority of the population on this planet:
U.S. election?" Are you serious?
This Iraqi writes that there is a chance that a victory by the Shi'ite ticket could turn the country into a mini-Iran.
In which election in the U.S. was there a possibility of us turning into a theocracy? None that I can remember.
According to the driver who was stopped with ballots loaded in the back of a truck, at least three other trucks have already infiltrated Iraq with fraudelent ballots. Since those ballots were made in Iran, it is a safe bet that the '555' guys are trying to leave nothing to chance. Just in case Al Sistani's exhortations, and the attacks on Allawi's supporters have failed to rally enough Shia, Jaafari and his ilk seem intent on just stealing the election (if necessary).
Over and over again, I have seen Republican posters on this site equate the situation in Iraq to domestic U.S. politics. The Sunnis are the Democrats, and I suppose the Shia are the Republicans. This is specious thinking. There are good, secular politicians in Iraq who are trying to do the right things. As this post makes clear, Allawi's slate represents the best hope for Iraq.
However, the Iranian-Dawa Party axis is a direct threat to that. From all reports, the reason the stuffed ballots are being brought in is that Shia militias and religiously affiliated personnel have moved into so many positions of authority that they could stuff ballot boxes with impunity.
If the results of this election are that, by whatever tactics, Sistani's list takes power, then I think we could be in for a long, dark night. Even when things are fair and above board, electorates often make horrendous mistakes. With the possibility of fraud and the influence of Iran through the Badr Organization, Dawa, and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about this election.
My intention is not to debate the inner workings of all you have described. My intention is to point out that, in US elections, there are factions and people who gripe and complain, charge voter fraud and disenfranchisement. We have screamed about hanging chads and butterfly ballots and miscounts.
We accept these things in the context they are given because here in the US we are free to speak out, to publicly complain, and to pursue legal means up to and including the Supreme Court and revised legislation, or the removal by election cycle, of any legislator who has not performed the job we elected them to perform.
Unless I've been under a rock these last 50 years, Iraqis have never enjoyed such freedoms. With the Baathists out of power, a starting point Constitution, and free elections which will establish a 4 year formal government who will then become responsible for addressing the grievances of her citizenry, I'd say Iraq is staring at her first chances of freedom and Democracy in, well, forever.
All of the issues you point out are valid, legitimate, and worrisome. Should things go as badly as you assert they may, many difficult and dark days could in fact lie ahead. The difference here is I am comparing the US and our ability to have this exchange (and this being a foregone conclusion as one of our fundamental rights under a Democracy), to the inability of Iraqis to have had the chance to engage in an equivalent dialog until now.
I will wring my hands over all the other points AFTER the election is held, the results tallied and verified, and the newly elected officials are in place and beginning to perform the duties they were elected to perform.
Sistani doesn't have a list, BTW, Sistani has refused to meet with any of the candidates for office in this election.
Republic that has, at least in theory, restrictions on the ability of the government to interfere in our daily lives. That is why, to date, it hasn't made a tremendous amount of difference to the lives of the average American who wins a given election. The losers are never shot. The winners never get to take the property of the losers, at least not directly.
'Freedom' and 'democracy' are not synonyms, as a great number of totalitarian evils got their start at the ballot box. The stakes are much, much higher in places like Iraq where the winner might literally 'take all,' than they could ever be in the United States.
We will indeed see how well this works out, especially if the Sistani faction finds itself at the top of the heap. Since it will control the judiciary, which has no history of independence, I wouldn't look too hard for any investigation into voting irregularities. It won't be forthcoming.
'Democracy' in a 3rd World, multi-ethnic state is frequently a dangerous sport. I encourage you to not generalize from the U.S. model, since our particular form of government arose naturally out of hundreds years of Anglo-saxon parliamentary experimentation.
The time to worry about what could go wrong with this election was BEFORE it was held. Now that we are in the middle of it, it is too late to adjust.
But my question to you is this. If the Sistani-Dawa faction takes power, and Iraq begins to greatly resemble Iran - what are we going to do then? What is 'No end but victory' in that condition? We had an election, these folks won. May be they won in a crooked fashion, but we will certify the results I am sure. What then? Do we overthrow them and start over? Do we keep our troops in place and keep fighting the Sunnis in defense of a Shi'ite theocracy?
Or do we keep our head in the sand and pretend that nothing is wrong?
Since these are very real possibilities, then it is important to consider what you believe is the best cause of action. It's best to decide that before you end up in a crisis.
Re: We do not live in a democracy. We live in a Republic.
We live in both--the two terms are certainly not exclusive of one another. A Republic ( Latin, "People's Thing") is any government that is not the property of some individual or special class--a monarch or an aristocracy or a priestly caste. A democracy (Greek: "People's Power") is any governmental system where the people's input to decisions is included in the process and where human rights are explicitly established. Britain is a democracy that is not a republic (it is of course a monarchy). China on the other hand is a republic that is not a democracy. We are both.
3rd World:
"In both the Direct type and the Representative type of Democracy, The Majority's power is absolute and unlimited; its decisions are unappealable under the legal system established to give effect to this form of government. This opens the door to unlimited Tyranny-by-Majority. This was what The Framers of the United States Constitution meant in 1787, in debates in the Federal (framing) Convention, when they condemned the "excesses of democracy" and abuses under any Democracy of the unalienable rights of The Individual by The Majority. Examples were provided in the immediate post-1776 years by the legislatures of some of the States. In reaction against earlier royal tyranny, which had been exercised through oppressions by royal governors and judges of the new State governments, while the legislatures acted as if they were virtually omnipotent. There were no effective State Constitutions to limit the legislatures because most State governments were operating under mere Acts of their respective legislatures which were mislabelled "Constitutions." Neither the governors not the courts of the offending States were able to exercise any substantial and effective restraining influence upon the legislatures in defense of The Individual's unalienable rights, when violated by legislative infringements. (Connecticut and Rhode Island continued under their old Charters for many years.) It was not until 1780 that the first genuine Republic through constitutionally limited government, was adopted by Massachusetts--next New Hampshire in 1784, other States later."
Republic - as we undersand it:
"A Republic, on the other hand, has a very different purpose and an entirely different form, or system, of government. Its purpose is to control The Majority strictly, as well as all others among the people, primarily to protect The Individual's God-given, unalienable rights and therefore for the protection of the rights of The Minority, of all minorities, and the liberties of people in general. The definition of a Republic is: a constitutionally limited government of the representative type, created by a written Constitution--adopted by the people and changeable (from its original meaning) by them only by its amendment--with its powers divided between three separate Branches: Executive, Legislative and Judicial. Here the term "the people" means, of course, the electorate."
Therein lies the crux, the basic understanding of 'democracy' in the 3rd World is that what the majority wants the majority gets. I have 51% of the votes, so my tribe gets to oppress your tribe. That is why so many attempts at 'Democracy' in the 3rd World explode into Civil War.
We should be exporting the concept of limited, decentralized government. Instead, I am afraid we are exporting mob rule over a centralized, powerful, and oppressive state.
so it comes down to another battle of the news stories. Which side has it right? The side making the charge, or the side making the denial?
Whether or not Sistani explicitly endorses the UIA as in January in front of the international media, he is certainly not stopping them from claiming his endorsement. "Al-Zaman: Sistani's office issued another communique making it obligatory on believers to vote, but declining to back any particular list. A similar statement was issued the by Shiite nationalist young cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which underscored his neutrality on the elections. The United Iraqi Alliance nevertheless widely uses Sistani's picture in its campaigning, as well as photos of Muqtada's father, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr (d. 1999)."
He would appear to be trying to have it both ways. He is letting them glam onto his image, but if something goes disastrously wrong he can disavow them down the road. Smart move. But given the deference that Jafaari pays to both Al Sistani and Sadr, I don't see him getting very far away from either of them. The UIA is Al Sistani's group of people, with some additional inclusions.
By the way, isn't Al Sadr supposed to be under indictment? Didn't we send forces into Najaf to take him down?
I'd be happy to see Allawi's list come out on top and not have to worry about any of these clowns. I'm not holding my breath, however.
I appreciate your bringing over a sample of these statements from NEBV. And although you seem to have somehow ignited a tempest in a teapot, I prefer to enjoy feeling a small bit of the excitement and pride that I detect in these diaries. This is a wonderful, exciting, and challenging time for the Iraqi people and I salute every man, woman, and family that has sacrificed so much making this dream a reality. I can't remember the exact words reported in the press today, but an Iraqi woman, fresh from casting her ballot, remarked that anyone who doesn't appreciate what the United States and President Bush have done for the people of Iraq can "go to hell." That made me laugh, but it also made me proud to be an American.
God bless the people of Iraq and God bless the United States of America!
How can a brother spare a dime when he does not have two nickels to rub together? Are the elections in Iraq of any real benefit to America? You have helped pay the price of the war but has it made a difference in Iraq? You deserve these answers. Americans cannot walk around freely in Iraq, Non-Muslims cannot freely practice their religion in Iraq, and in most places woman still cannot drive or work in Iraq. Shouldn't you have gotten more for your dollar in this war? Elections in Iraq, is it just the symbol of a failed policy that should be concluded by America?
Bush apologized for the intelligence mistakes, I guess that makes the almost 300 billion dollars, over 2000 lost lives, and countless injuries, all alright with everyone doesn't it?
The main highlights of Bush' speech presented some interesting points, some suitable, some unbelievable, some just plain unacceptable.
How about rebuilding the domestic American infrastructure, political landscape, and our nation's security. How about helping Americans first then the rest when we have a chance?
Raymond B
www.voteswagon.com
and try to realize there is a serious discussion going on here.
I'm the gardener, and you're starting to look like a weed. If your mission here is to shoehorn canned quotes from your blog into ongoing threads as an excuse to link to your blog, then I'm gonna have to play Santa Claus and hoe hoe hoe.
If you would like to cross-post an article from your blog as a diary, that's OK. But please don't chop your blog up into pieces and stuff it into other people's articles. Thanks.
country, I agree with you that the secular goverment would be the best shot. But getting a secular party elected in a factioned country is no easy task.
I have to ask, do you see any potential backlash between opposing faction if one of these parties mentioned does win? If a heavily religious party does not get their leaders elected, is it more likely they will pursue political actions to win, or violence?