Egyptian VP Suleiman Promised US the 2006 Gaza Election Wouldn’t Happen

[midnight]

“Everyone was against the elections,” Dahlan says. Everyone except Bush. “Bush decided, ‘I need an election. I want elections in the Palestinian Authority.’ Everyone is following him in the American administration, and everyone is nagging Abbas, telling him, ‘The president wants elections.’ Fine. For what purpose?”

The elections went forward as scheduled. On January 25, Hamas won 56 percent of the seats in the Legislative Council.

Few inside the U.S. administration had predicted the result, and there was no contingency plan to deal with it. “I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming,” Condoleezza Rice told reporters. “I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing.”

“Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’”

But a Wikileaks cable released by Aftenposten may explain why State was taken by surprised.


http://firedoglake.com/
7. (S/NF) Gilad said he warned Suleiman that if Hamas participates in the January 2006 Palestinian elections "it will destroy everything, as Hamas will take over and start a new process." According to Gilad, Suleiman and his deputy told him, "There will be no elections in January. We will take care of it." Gilad requested that the USG closely hold this information and strictly protect the sources. He clarified that neither Suleiman nor his deputy explained how Egypt would stop the elections or elaborated further on the subject. Gilad admitted that he does not know how the Egyptians could prevent the elections from taking place, but said, "The only people the Palestinians can trust now are the Egyptians."http://www.aftenposten.no/spesial/wikileaksdokumenter/article4021905.ece

Any ideas why Bush wanted this election?

[BobbyBoring]

1. They hate us for our freedom!

Just another example of our foreign lack of policy. We want elections but when we don't like the results, ie the party the most people vote for wins, we declare them invalid. It's a fucking shame that the Palestinians felt Hamas would serve the best interest of the people BUT Hamas, for all their shortcomings tried to provide food and basic necessities that Fatah wasn't.

If elections happen in Egypt, what do we do if an entity like The Muslim Brotherhood fares well. The people of the middle east are sick of having their leaders picked by us to support our business interest. I just wish Americans were as fed up with the status quo as the dirty brown "Moslems" are~

[aquart]

2. Well, you wait and we'll soon be as jobless and hungry as they are.

I love the constant call to martyrdom. Only the survivors of bloody revolution get to remember it fondly.

[Demeter]

3. A Madman Needs no reasons--a madman HAS no reasons

a drunken madman won't even remember the event.