The Bush administration and much of the media remains publicly fixated on the scheduled January elections in Iraq, suggesting that the "insurgency" is steadfast on disrupting the elections because it will mark a significant transition point that will lead to a legitimate government accepted by Iraqis.
That this is a fool's goal is perhaps no better illustrated than by the reports that, six weeks before the elections, less than one percent of Iraqis voters have been registered to vote.
You heard that right, less than one percent, according to the right-leaning Washington Times:
But six weeks before the historic vote, a U.S. official said, fewer than 1 percent of eligible Iraqis have responded to a voter-registration drive, forcing authorities to look for other ways to build up voter lists.
[snip]
Because there is no reliable census information, voter lists have been put together based on U.N. food-rationing lists from the era of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, with everyone on those lists being sent a form to verify its accuracy.
But only 60,000 to 70,000 people in a country of about 25 million have responded -- about .25 percent -- and authorities are now looking for other ways to qualify citizens to vote.
"Iraqis want democracy, but they know if they reach out, they will get shot," said a U.S. official in Baghdad who declined to be identified.
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Now of course "security" is one of the major issues surrounding why these elections are likely to fail to cloak the occupation-sponsored political process in legitimacy, but of course there are others. Let's let Baghdad blogger Riverbend speak:
[emphasis mine]
We're also watching the election lists closely. Most people I've talked to aren't going to go to elections. It's simply too dangerous and there's a sense that nothing is going to be achieved anyway. The lists are more or less composed of people affiliated with the very same political parties whose leaders rode in on American tanks. Then you have a handful of tribal sheikhs. Yes- tribal sheikhs. Our country is going to be led by members of religious parties and tribal sheikhs- can anyone say Afghanistan? What's even more irritating is that election lists have to be checked and confirmed by none other than Sistani!! Sistani- the Iranian religious cleric. So basically, this war helped us make a transition from a secular country being run by a dictator to a chaotic country being run by a group of religious clerics. Now, can anyone say 'theocracy in sheeps clothing'?
Ahmad Chalabi is at the head of one of those lists- who would join a list with Ahmad Chalabi at its head?
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London Independent reporter Patrick Cockburn, reporting from Baghdad on Flashpoints Radio, doesn't see much positive from the elections either:
[transcription mine, errors mine, emphasis mine]
(host) Dennis Bernstein: We are hearing continually about this fight for elections, which will be the real beginning of democracy in Iraq. Now we're hearing a plan that there's going to be voting over a period of weeks or months. I'm wondering, for instance, how this is playing in the Sunni community?
Patrick Cockburn: It plays pretty badly. But let me say something about the elections. If you were to go around Baghdad today and ask, "Well, are you thinking about the elections?" very few of them will say yes, because what you'd also notice are there are these enormous of people queuing for gas, because the electricity's very bad. [People(?)] also need gas to run little generators so they can have some electric light... and also there's no kerosene, because there's no electricity... it's actually pretty cold in Baghdad these... at night, they need kerosene to heat themselves and their families and there's very little kerosene. [So in thinking about the election(??)] ...quite a ways down the line: the elections, I don't think we're going to have much of an election in Sunni Muslim areas. This idea of spreading it out over a number of weeks, you just spread out the crisis over a number of weeks. People aren't going to vote because they don't like the occupation, because they don't like what happened in Fallujah, they are frightened of [unintelligible], but it's generally... I don't think it's going to happen there. In other areas, in Kurdish and Shi'ite areas, it will happen. And of course there are mixed areas where it's going to be contested, but I think the whole... the idea that, you know, the election is a turning point here is really... it's difficult to justify and it's really like other turning points that we've had before. Those have been the capture of Saddam Hussein, which we were speaking of, that was meant to be a turning point exactly a year ago; the interim government, sovereignty will return to Iraq at the end of June, that was meant to be a turning point. Now we've something that's being viewed as another turning point. I think one should be pretty cynical about this. I think that it has some significance, it's not going to alter the way things are going in Iraq.
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Both Cockburn, explicitly, and Riverbend, implicity (because of who she is and where she is), suggest that the elections are likely to be a farce in the Sunni areas of the country, a situation that will easily enough derail the long-awaited stability the American occupation is allegedly bringing to Iraq, but if the Washington Times report is correct, there is an even greater refusal to participate in the farce of elections going on in Iraq.