The same Republican strategists who came up with the plan to short-change poor black precincts in the U.S. must be the ones organizing the Iraqi election. Even the most ardent partisan G.O.P. organizer in Ohio couldn't dream up a sham election like the one the Bush administration is holding in Iraq this weekend.
Since it's still too dangerous on the streets of Iraq, we've banned driving for the three days leading up to the election ... ensuring that the only ones to have a vote will be those daring souls willing to dart on foot to the polling place. Even then, assuming they make it to the polls in one piece, they'll have a bit of a challenge making an informed choice because we've prohibited any rallies or overt campaigning prior to the election ... which was probably redundant anyway since most candidates are running anonymously out of fear for their own lives.
So the intrepid citizens of Iraq, having risked their lives to participate in what George W. Bush has proclaimed "the miracle of democracy," will have the opportunity to cast their ballot for slates of anonymous candidates, and then run for their lives to make it back to the relative safety of their homes before dark.
Meanwhile, we've arranged to allow about 250,000 Iraqi expatriates, who live in American, Australia, and a dozen other countries, to vote at their leisure during the days before election day. They'll drive to a polling place in a secure government building after having had the opportunity to consider the candidates and their stands on the issues.
So what's wrong with that? Just this: the proportionate turnout among expatriates is certain to be much higher than that of any other group in Iraq. By definition, expatriate means "one who has renounced one's native land." But Bush has arranged it so that those who renounced their native land, in some cases decades ago, will be over represented in the outcome of this "election."
This is not so much an election as it is another invasion. And what of those Iraqis who stayed in their homeland? How will they receive these new invaders, former Iraqis returning to occupy the land that they abandoned?
No matter, because in the end Bush will insist that Iraq has held its first free and open election, and that at last it has a sovereign government which we will respect ... unless they ask us to withdraw our troops currently standing guard over the second largest petroleum reserve on the planet.
International Herald Tribune (France) - Iraq: This election is a sham
Reuters - Arabs say Iraq vote gives democracy a bad name
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