castledoom.com

[JuntaJoe]

Over 8 million Iraqis voted the other day.

That comes to over 60% turnout.

Remember that there was a boycott from an entire minority group pulling that number down.

And it was a non-mandatory vote. Countries without a required vote rarely get to 60%.

Remember the contentious last US prez election that broke decades old voting numbers?

It didn't get as high a turnout rate as Iraq did!


And the Palestinians voted too.


Arab tv companies noted that while people in other Arab countries were likely to talk negatively about both elections when a microphone was stuck in their face, it was noted that life came to a virtual standstill in that entire region as people were glued to their tv's and radios for a couple of days.

They weren't talking, but they sure were watching.


I'd say the Western nations have finally managed to get the seed of democracy to finally sprout in the desert.


.....and the tree of freedom must be watered with the blood of tyrants and heroes......

[Eddy]

It is meaningless. The instant we pull our troops out, they'll collapse like a house of cards. I'm really negative about this because I've seen our "liberation" of Afghanistan and they are worse off than before which I never would have thought possible.

[broomdalf]

Yeah, just like West Germany and Japan did after we established republics in them, and pulled out.

Oh, wait...

[Baron]

Perhaps with economics freedoms insured, Iraq could be the Japan of the Middle East...

Wait and see!

And once Iraqis see the US leaving, they'll realize it's time to get their act together and enforce justice.

[Eddy]

Unlike Japan or Germany, the population of Iraq (and Afghanistan) has not been pacified. In fact, the longer we are there, the more rebellious they become and the government that was installed becomes that much weaker.

[JuntaJoe]

Both Japan and Germany were stubborn to pacify. Japan, in particular, had the problem of suicide driven rebels too. It took many years to calm those places down.

But that's not my point. Democracy is a new thing to that part of the world. It will be sloppy at first. But now they've tasted it. The other countries around them have seen it. It will stir the hearts of a few brave souls and make them push for it.

It may not be pretty or fast, but the first true taste of freedom is addictive and will not be denied.

[estio]

What I take from the Iraq election is a simple obvious fact. a majority of adults voted. This means the majority of people support democracy. They risked their lives to take part in it. That says a lot if you ask me.

Maybe someday the media will realize the majority of Iraqies don't look at us as the bad guys.


As for the long term results, there is quite a ways to go before that area is free and peaceful. The plague of religion will continue to cause problems.


Just because they support the idea of democracy doesn't necessarily mean they believe in individual freedom. The religious factions are just jostling to take control so their own brand of god can rule the country.

Democracy without guaranteed individual rights is nothing more than mob rule.

[jimmyreb]

Saying that the population there is opposed to the US occupation is listening to only one side, people love to blame someone for their hardship, when Suddam was in power, they had to just shutup, now they can whine and moan all they want because no one is going to put a bullet in their head. I very little respect for those people, pity, yes, but a people that are as beaten down as they are have very little to hold up. But what I have seen over the course of our occuaptaion and from the early stages of forming their own military and government is that they are slowly learning how to run themselves. And don't think that we are just going to pull out and leave them to what ever happens over there, I have no doubt that we will be watching that country like hawks.

[JuntaJoe]

The Details:

Shiites Win Nearly Half of Iraqi Votes

February 13, 2005 11:57 AM EST

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's majority Shiite Muslims won nearly half the votes in the nation's landmark Jan. 30 election, giving the long-oppressed group significant power but not enough to form a government on its own, according to results released Sunday.

The Shiites likely will have to form a coalition in the 275-member National Assembly with the other top vote-getters - the Kurds and Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's list - to push through their agenda and select a president and prime minister. The president and two vice presidents must be elected by a two-thirds majority.

"This is a new birth for Iraq," Iraqi election commission spokesman Farid Ayar said while announcing results. Iraqi voters "became a legend in their confrontation with terrorists."

Minority Sunni groups, which largely boycotted voting booths and form the core of the insurgency, rejected the election - raising the prospect of continued violence as Iraqis try to rebuild their country.

In an interview with Al-Jazeera television, Mohammed Bashar of the anti-American Association of Muslim Scholars said the fact that there were no international or U.N. monitors in Iraq made him question the figures.

"Those who boycotted the elections are more than those who took part in it," he said. "Boycotting the election does not mean that the boycotter will renounce his rights."

The Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance ticket received 4,075,295 votes, or about 48 percent of the total cast, Iraqi election officials said. The Kurdistan Alliance, a coalition of two main Kurdish factions, was second with 2,175,551 votes, or 26 percent, and the Iraqi List headed by the U.S.-backed Allawi finished third with 1,168,943 votes, or about 14 percent.

Those three top finishers represent about 88 percent of the total, making them the main power brokers as the assembly chooses national leaders and writes a constitution.

"That's really part of that democracy that we're all so happy that they're working toward," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.

Of Iraq's 14 million eligible voters, 8,550,571 cast ballots for 111 candidate lists, the commission said. About 94,305 were declared invalid.

The Iraqi Electoral Commission said the turnout was 58 percent, about what was predicted.

Assuming the total vote tally does not change, a party needs 30,750 votes to win a National Assembly seat. Only 12 parties have reached that threshold, under the provisional results released Sunday.

Once the results are certified, a complex mathematical formula will determine how many seats each of those parties receives.

In the ethnically mixed, oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Kurds took to the streets to celebrate the results. Cars sped through the streets blaring their horns and waving flags of Kurdistan.

Since Saddam Hussein's ouster, Kurdish leaders have focused on influencing political decisions in Baghdad with the aim of reinforcing autonomy in their northern provinces.

"I'm a Kurd. I'm the mother of a martyr. I feel like he has come back to life. We have a chance now," said Shamsa Saleh, 57, carrying a Kurdish flag in her hand.

People crowded the street and police patrolled to keep the peace.

The figures also indicate that many Sunni Arabs stayed at home on election day, either out of fear of insurgent attacks or opposition to a vote with thousands of U.S. and foreign soldiers on Iraqi soil.

In Anbar province, a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim insurgency, only 13,893 votes were cast in the National Assembly race - a turnout of 2 percent.

In Ninevah province, which includes the third-largest city, Mosul, only 17 percent of the voters participated in the National Assembly race and 14 percent voted in the provincial council contests.

"They're going to have to see more Sunnis brought into the constitution writing if there's going to be any legitimacy at the end of the day, and I think we'll see that," Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told "Fox News Sunday."

Sahib al-Amiri, an aide to radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, said his group expected the United Iraqi Alliance to receive a higher percentage of the vote. Turnout would have been higher if there was a U.S. withdrawal plan, he added.

A ticket headed by the country's president Ghazi al-Yawer, a Sunni Arab, won only about 150,000 votes - less than 2 percent. A list headed by Sunni elder statesman Adnan Pachachi took only 12,000 votes - or 0.1 percent.

Pachachi told Al-Arabiya television it was clear that "a big number of Iraqis" did not participate in the election, and "there are some who are not correctly and adequately represented in the National Assembly" - meaning his fellow Sunni Arabs.

"However, the elections are correct and a first step and we should concentrate our attention to drafting the constitution which should be written by all Iraqi factions in preparation for wider elections."

Parties have three days to lodge complaints before the results are considered official and assembly seats are allocated, the election commission said.

"Until now there is no estimation regarding how many seats the political parties will get," commission member Adel al-Lami said.

The balloting was the first free election in Iraq in more than 50 years and the first since Saddam was ousted from power after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Voters chose the National Assembly and ruling councils in the country's 18 provinces. Iraqis living in Kurdish-ruled areas of northern Iraq also elected a new regional parliament.

About 1.2 million Iraqis living abroad were eligible to vote in 14 nations. More than 265,000 of those Iraqis cast ballots in the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Jordan, the Netherlands, Sweden, Syria, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

In the United States, where more than 24,000 Iraqis cast ballots, the alliance was strongest with more than 31 percent, while Allawi's list came in sixth with about 4 percent - finishing not only behind the Kurds but also behind two tiny Assyrian Christian parties and a communist-led party.

Copyright 2005 Associated Press

[FrankyG888]

It was a great day for Iraq and for Palestine, but Abbas has been elected to his post for life, and Iraq is no more secure today then it was before the election.

The majority may be for us, but that really doesn't matter. A militant minority has always been dangerous. Remember the Nazis only had 10% of the Reichstag after the first election...

This is not the end of a difficult journey, but we are one giant step closer to our destination.

[JuntaJoe]

I fully agree.

But I've seen some commentary from the guy who will likely head up the Shiite coalition in Iraq. He sounds rather practical. He's also a medical doctor. They do tend to be rather practical people, imo. Medical school surely takes the shine off idealism.

And the Shiites needing the Kurds to form a majority in Parliment will engender the mood of compromise that's so badly needed there.