Reality and the Iraq elections

Yes I am cynical about the "election" in Iraq, I can't help it. I can't believe anything that George W. Bush says, I can't believe anything I read in the American press and I gave up watching television news long ago. I witnessed the great leap towards Democracy in Afghanistan that didn't change anything. Karzi was nothing more than the mayor of Kabul before the election and remains the mayor of Kabul after the election. Brian Whitaker in the Guardian sums it up pretty well; "One election does not a democracy make".

President George Bush has pronounced the election in Iraq a success. "The world is hearing the voice of freedom from the centre of the Middle East," he said yesterday.
Since this is more or less what he was bound to say anyway, the only surprise is that he waited until four hours after the polls had closed before saying it.

It's a curious sort of freedom where candidates cannot campaign openly for fear of their lives and where, despite the tightest security that the occupation armies and the Iraqi forces can provide - curfews, banning cars from the streets, intensive searches at polling stations, etc - more than 40 people still die.

Every time the Bush administration declares victory it only gets worse.

It's almost two years since Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, shrugged off the looting during the first few days after the fall of Saddam Hussein by accusing the media of exaggerating.

"Freedom's untidy," he said. "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things.
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In those days, bringing stability to Iraq was just a matter of rounding up the Ba'athist "remnants" and catching the man who was orchestrating the trouble from his hole in the ground.

Eventually they caught Saddam, but it got worse.

Continuing violence was then attributed to the "run-up" to the handover of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government.

Sovereignty was duly handed over, George Bush famously scribbled "Let freedom reign" on his notepad, and again it got worse.

Since then, we have had violence in the "run-up" to the election. This time, American officials have been less optimistic. Applying a sort of inverse magic - the way actors superstitiously wish each other good luck before a performance by saying "break a leg" - they have been predicting that things may get worse still after the election. And this time their predictions are likely to be right.

Like Afghanistan, the election didn't change anything.

The election has done nothing to help resolve the question of Iraq's ethnic and religious divisions - particularly that of the disaffected Sunni Arab minority. If anything, it has further institutionalised these divisions.

Whatever the results when the votes are finally counted, it is already clear that the emerging system of political parties is based around interest groups and men of influence rather than debates about policy - a system that may look vaguely democratic on the outside but is actually a barrier to genuine democracy.
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Over the next few months, the new Iraqi parliament is supposed to draft a permanent constitution which, among other things, will have to grapple with the thorny issues of federalism and the role of Islam in the state - issues that the Americans ducked before handing over sovereignty.

Arguments about the constitution could bring Iraq to the crunch point - possibly with fatal consequences - or, more likely, the parliament will come up with another fudge, putting off the crunch (as the Americans did) for another day.

At best they will end up with something that is a Democracy in name only.

If the Iraqis are lucky, they may eventually arrive at the corrupt fig-leaf sort of democracy that flourishes in other Arab states such as Egypt. The sort of democracy where elections change nothing and their results are always a foregone conclusion. On the other hand, they may not be so fortunate.

All we are waiting for is the next Rovian grandstanding aircraft carrier moment. And Bush will have the nerve to say "see, I was right". Some will reply "right about what"? but most will say "look he was right" because that's what the press tells them. It's a sad day.