Doubts grow over Iraqi elections

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04273/387295.stm

With only about 100 days to go before tentatively scheduled elections to decide Iraq's future, no posters adorn the capital's streets and no names are being bandied about. There have been no debates scheduled, no candidates forums, no voter education guides.

Instead, Iraqis, U.S. officials and Arab leaders are raising doubts that legitimate elections can go forward as scheduled in January due to continuing violence, lagging preparation and widespread cynicism.

The leading cleric of the majority Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and Jordan's King Abdullah II yesterday joined the chorus of doubters.

"If elections take place in the current disorder, the best organized faction will be the extremists," Abdullah said in an interview published in the French daily Le Figaro. "The results will reflect this advantage of the extremists. In such a scenario, there will be no chance that the situation gets better."

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. It has been obvious for a while that this election thing was a fraud

There are no candidates, no registration, no parties, no positions, no platforms, no organization. They only have bush promising an election of some sort.

[daleo]

2. Without elections, no legitimacy. Without legitimacy, no elections.

Anyone with more brains than a chimp could have foreseen this catch 22. Oh, wait, tens of millions of us did, in peace marches before the war.

[struggle4progress]

3. kick for democracy by appointment only

:kick: