Only one in four will cast vote, Iraqi minister warns

[no_to_war_economy]

The armed resistance is now so experienced and entrenched that the election is unlikely to have much effect on it. Insurgents have distributed blood-curdling leaflets in Baghdad threatening to deluge polling stations with rockets and mortar fire. A voter "will not be able to imagine what will happen to him and his family for taking part in this crusader's conspiracy to occupy the land of Islam", they said.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=604591

[Massachusetts]

1. "Its hard work" - The Village Idiot

[jswordy]

2. Prediction: Civil war

You are going to see the newly elected candidates DOA as far as legitimacy, with Kurds and Sunnis turning away from them and no cohesive national military or security forces at their disposal with which to control the entire country. Resentments will boil as soon as the new crew starts to act in any definitive way to govern.

Unless Sunnis are brought into the government immediately and with some clout (which appears now doubtful), look for accelerating rhetoric and either civil war or near-civil war.

The elections, seen as a balm by Bushco, are really an inflammatory agent.

The current situation is quite interesting, because it appears to continue to validate dictatorship as indeed the most efficient way to rule Iraq as a unified country. Essentially, the dictatorship of U.S. forces is what is barely keeping it together there now.

"Freedom is messy." Yeah buddy, and we're gonna find out just HOW messy!

[Rockerdem]

7. Civil war was pretty obvious months ago

One set of clerics issues a fatwa not to vote. Another set of clerics issue a fatwa to vote. The split couldnt be any more apparent. Its coming.

[lebkuchen]

3. According to Bush, if two vote, that's progress

I don't see how that is worth the lives of over 14,000 soldiers, to include those who have suffered irreversible physical damage.

[Demeter]

4. Now THAT'S Democracy (Bush Style)

[keopeli]

5. 25% turnout sounds unrealistic to me

I think 10-15% is optimistic, too, but I can live with it.

[DulceDecorum]

6. Who needs voters

when you have DIEBOLD?

[ultraist]

8. Massive voter suppression & intimidation= a democratic process?

The mass opposition to the occupation guarantees there will be widespread abstention from the January 30 ballot, denying the result any legitimacy. Millions of Iraqis are expected to heed the call by 68 political parties and organisations for a boycott, mainly on the grounds that no genuine election can be held under the barrel of foreign guns and under conditions of a guerilla war. The most prominent advocates of the boycott are the main Sunni Muslim religious body, the Association of Muslim Scholars, and the largest Sunni political party, the Iraq Islamic Party. Other organisations include women’s groups, ethnic Turkomen and Christian associations, and the Workers Communist Party of Iraq. A US State Department survey conducted in Iraqi cities in December found that only 32 percent of Sunnis considered it “very likely” that they would vote, and only 12 percent stated that they viewed the election as legitimate.

Reuters reported yesterday that there are indications many Iraqis will leave the country due to the lack of security, and many police may not show up for work on election day. One officer stated: “The elections will be the worse days in this country, even with all the security preparations. We will be the first targets and I will leave the country next week for Syria. I don’t want my children to live without a father and that is what could happen if I stay and do my job.”

A number of political figures in Iraq, including the president Ghazi al-Yawar and defence minister Hazem al-Shaalan, have publicly stated a delay in the elections is necessary due to the likely low turnout in many parts of the country. Shaalan told Agence France Presse the boycott calls would mean as much as “one half of (Iraqi) society would be absent from this election and the citizens of Ramadi, Mosul, Tikrit and Diala would not take part”.

Following a phone discussion with Bush, however, Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has ruled out any delay. Highlighting the fact that the elections have no democratic content, Allawi this week extended until the end of February the state of emergency he declared last November, under which his government has imposed curfews and other martial law-style conditions in many areas of the country.

[struggle4progress]

9. kick