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| Iraq-Jordan |
| USA Shortsightedly Fostering Party-Slate Elections in Iraq |
| 2004-06-19 |
| From The Washington Post, an opinion article by Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. On June 30 ... a caretaker Iraqi government will run the country until elections in January. ... There are two ways to hold direct elections: by party slates, with each party gaining representation according to its portion of the vote, or by single-member constituencies, somewhat like our own congressional districts. On June 4 Carina Perelli, head of the U.N. electoral advisory team in Iraq, endorsed party slates. When I was a roving CPA political adviser, I lived outside the Green Zone and interacted not only with Iraqi politicians but also with ordinary people. Voting was the topic of conversations at teahouses and mosques. Islamist parties tended to favor a party-slate system. Advocates of an Iranian-style Islamic republic were blunt: "The first article in a democracy is the rule of the majority over the minority." .... Liberal Iraqis favor constituency-based elections. .... Older Iraqis also favor constituencies. Distrust of political parties is deeply rooted. One recent poll indicated that political parties have only a 3 percent favorability rating. Pensioners remember the 1960s as a time of pitched street battles between adherents of leftist and nationalist parties. Younger generations view parties through the lens of the Baath Party experience, in which employment depended on a party membership card. Distrust of parties extends to Iraqi Kurdistan, where I taught in the 2000-01 academic year. With few exceptions, my students associated local Kurdish parties with corruption, abuse of power and nepotism. ... Even Perelli, the U.N. official, acknowledged Iraqi ill feeling toward political parties. .... But at her news conference this month, Perelli explained her rationale for abandoning the accountability of single-member constituencies in favor of pursuing party-slate elections. "There are a lot of communities that have been broken and dispersed around Iraq," she said, "and these communities wanted to be able to accumulate their votes and to vote with like-minded people." .... With that one sentence, Perelli would set Iraq on the slippery slope to the failed Lebanese-style communal system. According to an Iraqi electoral commission member, Bremer agreed to a party-slate system to bypass the tricky question of who votes where, thereby trading Iraq’s long-term health for short-term expediency. .... The party-slate system will not bolster representation. Many Iraqis share ethnicity but not local interests. Tel Afar, a town of 160,000 east of Mosul, is 95 percent Shiite Turkmen. Its Turkish-speaking residents have little in common with Turkmen in Erbil or Kirkuk. The party-slate system might also undercut religious freedom. Christians, for example, represent less than 3 percent of Iraq’s population. They remain concentrated in towns such as Alqosh, Ainkawa and Duhok. Many Christians do not support parties such as the Assyrian Democratic Movement. Without district-based elections, they may find themselves without representation. Smaller religious communities that do not have their own political parties but who live in clustered districts may find themselves without political representation in the important constitutional process. .... |
| Posted by:Mike Sylwester |
| #7 DBT doen't have a plan, he's got advanced syphlis; such a great sorrow since he collected it from clintons. Such is his delusion that he thinks he can spread it online. hey DBT, that works on AOL., and maybe from reading clintons book, but not here. |
| Posted by: Annie War 2004-06-19 9:41:48 PM |
| #6 Sucking Troll (DBT) - Do YOU have a plan? Tell us what YOU would do. I'm sure it would be fascinating. If not, FOAD. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-06-19 5:59:56 PM |
| #5 I've seen this pinhead on the tele before. He does have a point. The lame-brained UN Perelli wants to orchestrate a "PC" election instead of a truly democratic election, as the Iraqis have requested. She is another santimonious fool from the House of Fools (that be the UN). The UN may just screw things up if they have enough rope. |
| Posted by: Capt America 2004-06-19 5:11:07 PM |
| #4 Bush2001 - fight "hijackers" of the Islamic faith, who murdered over 3,000 Americans. Bush2002 - pressure Secular Arab governments to include within the nominal democratic process, "hijackers" of the Islamic faith, who murdered over 3,000 Americans. Bush2003 - fight Seculars (including Baathists), while indulging "hijackers" of the Islamic faith, who murdered over 3,000 Americans. Bush2004 - prior to pseudo democratic elections in Iraq, create a power vacuum that is being filled by "hijackers" of the Islamic faith, who murdered over 3,000 Americans. Bush2005 - facilitate pseudo democratic elections in Iraq, which will, in context of the Powell enabled cultural integration of the Khomenist entity (Iran) with Shiite majority Iraq, will deliver Iraq to the "axis of evil," and threaten US oil supplies. Fanatics = Believers that Bush-Powell's Iraq policies will enhance American security, and contribute to the democratization of the world. |
| Posted by: Dog Bites Trolls 2004-06-19 3:48:34 PM |
| #3 You are a "Euro" yourself, aren't you? Or am I confusing you with someone else? |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-06-19 3:44:54 PM |
| #2 Party slate is an EEEEEEVIL system who keeps the decision outside the hands of the people. In the first stage. Let's imagine a party who expects ten deputies. The party places Mr X, a man hated by the people but the main bootlicker of the party chief in position 2 of the list ie where under no circumstance could he fail to be elected and Mr Y on position 25 (ie not one chance in one thousand to be elected) because he disgress with the boss. The people haave had not a word to say about all this internal maneuvering. After the elections we find that the party is at the hinge in the chamber: it doesn't matter too much if he goes from five to 2.5% of the votes it is still in the position to decide who will rule and the heads of the big parties have to kiss its ass. Thus we have that shiity little party whose deputies were selected by the party boss instead of by the people who dominates political life. We have democracy in name but not rule of the people. Euros looooove this system. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-06-19 3:41:18 PM |
| #1 See here as to why. PC gone wild. |
| Posted by: someone 2004-06-19 12:52:16 PM |