"Elections" and other Deceptions in Iraq

Just before Saturday’s so-called constitutional referendum vote in occupied Iraq, one of my close friends in Baghdad wrote me, “I would like to point out that we are three days away from the referendum, yet very large sectors of Iraqi people couldn’t receive part of the five million copies [of the constitution] from the UN, ie- they will not know what the constitution contains. Subsequently, they will vote according to their backgrounds or religious or political preferences. Many people who will vote yes do not know why they will vote yes...what kind of vote is this?”

The vote had many similarities to the farce which took place on January 30-aside from a repeat of the draconian measures to provide security and quite a large dose of propaganda; we once again have what already appears to be rampant election fraud.

Figures provided by several governorates have required Iraq’s independent electoral commission (IEC) to order (under heavy Sunni political pressure) “re-examination, comparison and verification because they [voter turnout figures] are relatively high compared with international averages for elections” of this kind; according to a statement made by the IEC on Monday.

This occurred rather inconveniently after US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s nearly instantaneous belief that the constitution “has probably been passed.”