No Foreign Observers to Monitor Iraq Vote

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/world.shtml#17362

When 1 million Palestinians voted for a successor to Yasser Arafat, 800 international observers poured into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to monitor the polling. Former president Jimmy Carter and former Swedish prime minister Carl Bildt led one team. A former French prime minister led another, and there were two U.S. congressional delegations.

When 8 million Afghans voted in October, at least 122 international observers from across Europe and Asia monitored the presidential election -- and declared it an "orderly and transparent process."

But in Iraq, where 14 million people are eligible to vote, the elections next week may have only one outsider from the hastily organized International Mission for Iraqi Elections to evaluate the balloting. If reluctant governments change their minds at the last minute about letting their officials go to Iraq, a handful of others may show up. But, even then, none is likely to tour polling stations or to be publicly identified, mission and U.S. officials said.

The violence in Iraq means that its elections will be the first among dozens of transitional elections over the past two decades -- since democracy began to sweep through eastern Europe, the old Soviet Union, Latin America and Africa -- that will not have an international observer force touring polling stations to assess the vote's credibility, election experts say.

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[tuvor]

1. Oh, there'll be SOME foreign "observers".

And their boss is bush.

[The Zanti Regent]

2. Fair election? Sure, as fair as the one we just had.

The Je$u$i$ta$ will make sure the fix is in for the coronation of a Bush/Likud stooge!

[EC]

3. this whole election

is bogus...they'll lie about how many people voted, they'll lie about who "won" it's a complete sham...

[Gman]

4. The Iraqi election by default is illegitimate

if there is no one to verify the fairness. It's kinda like here in America.

[cliss]

5. The word on the street is.....

you show up at the ballot box, and you're dead. Journalists have already been interviewing people around Baghdad and also in Iraq, and they basically have said that they're too scared to vote.

So I'm guessing not too many people will vote. Not that it will make any difference, anyway. Allawi is "the man", given the CIA stamp of approval from the US.

So there will probably be 10,000 total votes, and they'll spin it into 10,000,000 votes. After all, they have practice from the US. So George needs to get ready to do some heavy lying. It will be tough, but he's also had plenty of practice. No one will believe him.

It will be the biggest lies of his "career".

[struggle4progress]

6. kick