By Dave Anderson:
Our mass market media is beginning to recognize that Iraq is not full of whiskey, sexy, democracy even though there have been numerous purple fingers, elections and a decrease in the number of car bombings and deaths (of Iraqis and Americans).
Time Magazine picks up a clue:Iraq's democratic system is in trouble. That much was acknowledged for
the first time on Monday by U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill.The
immediate cause for his concern was the decision by Iraq's Supreme Court
to uphold the disqualification of 52 candidates who ran in the March 7
parliamentary elections � two of whom had won seats � on charges that
they had ties to Saddam Hussein's banned Ba'ath party. Because most of
those disqualified were Sunni Muslim members of Prime Minister Ayad
Allawi's Iraqiya party, the decision was widely viewed as an attempt by
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to try and regain the lead before the
election results are finally accepted. Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated State
of Law coalition came in second in the poll, two seats behind Iraqiya,
but the court's decision could put it back in front to form a new
coalition government.
Combine the winner bans with the redistribution of votes from the losing but still post-facto banned candidates, SOL and INA will most likely pick up seats at the expense of Iraqiya. SOL is pushing to have Baghdad recounted in order to grab a few more seats. This is playing out as I expected in that the current Iraqi government will return to power with a few tweaks and changes as they are the coalition of the civil war winners and Iraqiya is the coalition of the civil war losers:
It is very plausible that the current government of Iraq can
be reconstituted with only minor changes around the edges as various
factions gained or lost a few seats here and there.That would not be a massive problem if the
Iraqqiya list was given a legitimate chance at forming a coalition
government as that would give legitimacy to the electoral process as
well as including the losers of the civil war into the political
process. Enhanced political legitimacy would be an overall net good for
almost everyone in Iraq.However, if the Iraqqiya list is barred from
attempting to form a coalition government and the SOL, INA and
Kurdistan Alliance basically re-establish the current Iraqi government
even if there is a different prime minister, then the message is clear;
the losers can suck on it as the political system has no more rules than
Machiavellian Calvinball.
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