Liberal: Elections in Iraq

Last Sunday Iraq saw its first free election in more than fifty years. This is of course is a fabulous example of democracy in action. Eligible voters were not told where to vote until a few hours before the polls opened and the names of all seven thousand candidates for each of the two hundred and fifty seats were announced in the few days leading up to the election. The names probably would have been kept a secret even longer, but the voting for Iraqi expatriates living in other countries began two days earlier. I applaud the people who were brave enough to find and travel to the polling places, but I cannot ignore the fact that they do not represent the population of Iraq. Sunnis in central Iraq did not come out to vote and this probably has a lot to do with the fact that central Iraq is a very dangerous place right now. The Kurds in northern Iraq, where security is effective, came out in large numbers. The Kurds are heavily influenced by neighboring Iran (Shiites) and are voting to elect their own separate parliament. Roughly two thirds of the Iraqi people are Shiite and while they promise to form a democracy and include the minority groups in drafting a constitution, with a vast majority of the representative votes I just don’t see the minority groups having much power to persuade them. A similar situation in Iran, after the Shah was ousted in 1979, went from good intentions to a harsh Theocracy in which democratically elected officials were either executed or imprisoned. The very people who had fought tyranny to bring freedom to the Iranian people were imprisoned by the new regime. If this is the future that awaits Iraq I cannot say that holding elections is a good idea. The country is so culturally divided and torn apart by war that thousands, possibly millions of people are being disenfranchised. It is ludicrous to think that a healthy democracy is a possible outcome of the recent elections. The insurgent attackers have returned with vengeance and there seems to be little hope that the Iraqi government will be able to assume control any time soon. This sham of an election has served only to exacerbate Iraq’s internal strife and for these reasons I contend that: the elections should not have been held at all.