Elections Are Not Democracy

[illbill]

http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?t=1608


<snip>By the time you read this, you will know how the elections in Iraq have gone. No matter what the violence, the elections are an important step forward, for Iraq and for the Middle East. But it is also true, alas, that no matter how the voting turns out, the prospects for genuine democracy in Iraq are increasingly grim. Unless there is a major change in course, Iraq is on track to become another corrupt, oil-rich quasi-democracy, like Russia and Nigeria.<snip>


http://www.realopinion.com/realboards/showthread.php?t=1608

[oblivious]

1. How can anyone call picking a number a vote?

What are Iraqi voters to think of Western democracy after this? They appear to have been given a list of numbers and told to choose one. What a sham! What a lame joke! And to see the world press trumpeting this "Vote" as progress.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1292228.htm

The lists, which only bear numbers and not candidate names for the most part, were published only two days before.

At a polling station in the New Mosul neighbourhood, Mahasin Ahmed, 37, a school teacher, wanted to vote for Yawar, a tribal leader, but did not know that his list number was 255 and neither did the election worker helping her.

He suggested she vote for list 188 because it had "tribes" in the title.

[orpupilofnature57]

2. why aren't we so worried about N Korea's democracy? Oil.

Remember this is just a Rovian exercise to keep born in the U.S.A and fundies fed,Mopre smoke and glass.