"Hey, We Could Have an ELECTION!"

At least sixteen fewer people will "vote" in the Iraqi "election," still scheduled for January 29th, although you've got to wonder about anyone who says elections can be held under these conditions:

Lakes of sewage in the streets. The smell of corpses inside charred buildings. No water or electricity. Long waits and thorough searches by U.S. troops at checkpoints. Warnings to watch out for land mines and booby traps. Occasional gunfire between troops and insurgents.

Let's face it--the conditions make plebscites in Louisiana look positively clean in comparison.

Riverbend has a few words of her own regarding the upcoming tally:

The elections are set for the 29th. It's an interesting situation. The different sects and factions just can't seem to agree. Sunni Arabs are going to boycott elections. It's not about religion or fatwas or any of that so much as the principle of holding elections while you are under occupation. People don't really sense that this is the first stepping stone to democracy as western media is implying. Many people sense that this is just the final act of a really bad play. It's the tying of the ribbon on the "democracy parcel" we've been handed. It's being stuck with an occupation government that has been labeled 'legitimate' through elections...

There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don't know the candidates. We know the principal heads of the lists but we don't know who exactly will be running. It really is confusing. They aren't making the lists public because they are afraid the candidates will be assassinated.

Another problem is the selling of ballots. We're getting our ballots through the people who give out the food rations in the varying areas. The whole family is registered with this person(s) and the ages of the varying family members are known. Many, many, many people are not going to vote. Some of those people are selling their voting cards for up to $400. The word on the street is that these ballots are being bought by people coming in from Iran. They will purchase the ballots, make false IDs (which is ridiculously easy these days) and vote for SCIRI or Daawa candidates. Sunnis are receiving their ballots although they don't intend to vote, just so that they won't be sold.

Yet another issue is the fact that on all the voting cards, the gender of the voter, regardless of sex, is labeled "male". Now, call me insane, but I found this slightly disturbing. Why was that done? Was it some sort of a mistake? Why is the sex on the card anyway? What difference does it make? There are some theories about this. Some are saying that many of the more religiously inclined families won't want their womenfolk voting so it might be permissible for the head of the family to take the women's ID and her ballot and do the voting for her. Another theory is that this 'mistake' will make things easier for people making fake IDs to vote in place of females.

All of this has given the coming elections a sort of sinister cloak. There is too much mystery involved and too little transparency. It is more than a little bit worrisome.

American politicians seem to be very confident that Iraq is going to come out of these elections with a secular government. How is that going to happen when many Shia Iraqis are being driven to vote with various fatwas from Sistani and gang? Sistani and some others of Iranian inclination came out with fatwas claiming that non-voters will burn in the hottest fires of the underworld for an eternity if they don't vote (I'm wondering- was this a fatwa borrowed from right-wing Bushies during the American elections?). So someone fuelled with a scorching fatwa like that one- how will they vote? Secular? Yeah, right.

And Swopa at Needlenose came across an interesting article suggesting that Allawi might not do so bad in certain areas like Basra, where secular Sh'ias would view him more favorably than some of the more overtly religious candidates, particularly those with ties to Iran. Swopa notes that the lesser of evils in Iraq is certainly a good bit worse than what we get here in the US (to paraphrase Rummy, you go to the election with the candidates you have...).

However, let's be real--it won't matter who "wins" the election, for the same reason that it doesn't matter if you've got the right-of-way at an intersection but a Ford F-350 Super Duty pickup decides to make an illegal turn--you can have "but I had the right-of-way" chisled on your tombstone, but it's not likely to make much of a difference. The winner of the Iraqi election will have to contend with an insurgency that sees military strength as the ultimate arbiter--and the insurgency will be better organized, better trained, and, thanks to the stupidity of "shock and awe followed by catastrophic success," likely better equipped than any constitutionally organized security or military force.

Under those circumstances, elections are, well, foolish--they accomplish nothing except to provide insurgents with additional people to target. Of course, they also provide a cynical cover for some Washington politicians too...