The Iraqi Election Results: A quick note
Dec 21 2005, 00:36 EST [updated Dec 21 2005, 00:37 EST]
They aren't in yet but rumors of the final count are flying around. Rumors were flying since before they could have possibly been founded in reality. I am hopeful but the rumors seem built around the idea that if the actual vote counts don't favor X they must be invalid. I've seen this floated mostly in a Sunni context. The minority Sunnis have stood tall on the backs of the rest of Iraqis since WWII. Influential Sunnis asked their neighbors to sit out the previous elections in the hope that a boycott would make the democratic process so unrepresentative on its face any government so elected would be popularly believed invalid. It didn't work - they cannot reasonably hope to be princes amoungst peers in a democratic Iraq.
In the current election the Sunni taste-makers encouraged their friends to vote in the realization that if a democratic Iraq does ensue they would be suckers to not have representation. The day's rumors are more sinister (and I borrow this coloring without attribution). Early rumors - before preliminary numbers are even available - seem customized to predjudice the Sunni minority to reject any outcome that doesn't favor them. Encouraging people to vote when you will color the results as "Tails I win, Heads the vote was rigged" is not the same thing as supporting democracy (and again, I'm borrowing the idea while not looking up the link).