Iraqi election turn-out higher?

Amid the mayhem in Iraq in 2005, there took place an event that was quite unprecedented in the Arab world—the first Iraqi elections, conducted under the supervision of the unsung Paul Bremer. There were enduring images from that election, of ink-stained fingers held aloft by men and women who had exercised their brand-new right to vote—empurpled digits held up, for the cameras of the world, as an “up yours” to Saddam Hussein and his Baathists, to “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” and to every sanguinary insurgent who would kill to stop the implanting in Iraq of democracy. Iraq has seen other elections since that first one—sometimes twice a year. They have all been significant, though none has been as profusely emotional as the first. With the exception of the latter, which the Sunnis stupidly boycotted, turnout has been consistently high—certainly higher than the turnout in most American elections. And so it should be, one expects, on Sunday, March 7, when Iraqis vote—yet again—for the government of their choice. We have not, of course, reached a position where we can talk about “just another Iraqi election.” But if you look at how our newspapers are covering the run-up to the event, you will see in the reporting the sorts of observations that might be made in the last lap before an Indian general election, or a South African, Brazilian, or Turkish one. There are accounts of colorful billboards and posters, of infighting within parties over prospective alliances, of candidates doling out gifts—free chickens, sports shoes, clothes, even money—to cannily undecided voters. Accounts of violence do not predominate, and no one is asking—as they did with trepidation in 2005, and as they have done, often, since—whether Iraq will be safe enough for people to vote. here

Massoud Barzani, the president of Iraq's Kurdish region, a former guerrilla fighter, has led the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) since 1979,

The KDP is one of the two dominant parties in the northern Kurdish region.The KDP banded together with the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by Jalal, Iraq's current president, to run the region.

De-Baathification: boon to the new Iraq

In the new Iraq, released by American power from its long nightmare, it was either de-Baathification or mass slaughter of yesterday's tormentors. The American regency in Iraq made its share of blunders. But that order No. 1 issued by proconsul Paul Bremer, banning the Baath, was a boon to the new Iraq. On the whole, the hand of vengeance was stayed. It was remarkable how little violence was unleashed on those who had perpetrated on Iraqis a reign of the darkest terror.

Nor is it true that a sister republic of the Iranian theocracy is emerging in Baghdad, as some American officials have suggested. This is a slur on Iraq and Iraqis, and on the vast Shiite majority to be exact.

So Iran has designs on Iraq. Well what of it? A long border, the traffic of centuries in faith and commerce, runs between the two countries. But no Iraqi project in the offing contemplates making Iraq a satrap of the Persian state.

There plays upon Iraqis the hope that their country can make its own way, defying the obituaries of doom written for their new order in neighboring lands and beyond. There is a transparent parliamentary culture in Iraq, and we for our part ought to be proud of what we have given birth to.

Leave it to the Egyptians and the Arabs of the Peninsula and the Persian Gulf to belittle the new order in Iraq. They threw everything at it but it managed to survive. Peace has not settled upon Baghdad, but this Iraq, even in its current condition, is a rebuke to the dynasties and the dictatorships of the Arab world.
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