Oil for food scandel? How about votes for food.

I spent part of the morning going through a lot of Iraqi blogs, looking to see what thoughts the authors had to offer on yesterday's elections. While I saw an expected spread of people who had boycotted, people who were happy to vote, and some who voted but were critical, one theme started to show up. I have not seen this in any MSM outlets yet, but there is a disturbing recurrance of people reporting rumors that if you don't vote, you won't get your voucher for food distribution next month. Khalid Jarrar of Secrets in Baghdad described it as follows:

the way the voting happened, is that you go to the voting center, and you go to the man that is your ration dealer, the oen that you take the ration from him every month, so you tell him that you are gonna vote, he marks your name on his list, and then you vote!!!

that way the goverment will know exactly who voted and who didnt, two dealers said that the next years' card won't be given to those who didnt vote..

I certainly hope this is just a rumor, but I've seen it on several Iraq blogs now. As we have said so many times in the past, perceptions in Iraq can be far more powerful than reality, and the threat of losing your food supply is certainly a perception that many people wouldn't want to take a chance on. Raed in the Middle has more:

It is well known all over Iraq now that if you didn't go to vote, the government will cut your monthly food rations. EVERYONE is talking about this, and EVERYONE believes it too!!! and this is one of the main reasons of why millions of poor and destroyed Iraqis were dragged out of their homes today and sent to election centers in the middle of explosions and bullets. They don't give a damn about elections, they want food. Millions of Iraqis don't have the possibility of testing whether this rumor is true or false, this is about surviving. They are ready to put their lives in danger to go get their monthly food rations.

"I will go and drop a blank ballot, I just want my family's food rations", a friend of my brother Khalid told him a couple of days ago in Baghdad.

This is beyond disturbing. It's rather hard to conceive of the people in Iraq looking on the election results as "legitimate" if a significant number of them didn't know or care who they were voting for, but only dropping ballots to ensure they would eat in February. I'm waiting to see if this is picked up in our "liberal media."