Keeping Iraq Elections Honest
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, The War On Terrorism, War
So, I guess many wouldn’t consider this “good news” out of Iraq, but I do. Because any time we catch somebody who would seek to “game” the democratic process, it’s a good thing.
Yes, that’s right. Apparently, it looks like some fake Iraqi ballot boxes stuffed with thousands of votes were seized coming in from Iran.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 13 – Less than two days before nationwide elections, the Iraqi border police seized a tanker on Tuesday that had just crossed from Iran filled with thousands of forged ballots, an official at the Interior Ministry said.The tanker was seized in the evening by agents with the American-trained border protection force at the Iraqi town of Badra, after crossing at Munthirya on the Iraqi border, the official said. According to the Iraqi official, the border police found several thousand partly completed ballots inside.
The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said the Iranian truck driver told the police under interrogation that at least three other trucks filled with ballots had crossed from Iran at different spots along the border.
This is serious stuff, and shows how far some in Iran would go to try and upset the democratic process in Iraq.
However, this also (sadly) demonstrates that some in Iraq are probably complicit in these actions, otherwise the fake ballots would never have come into the country.
So who do the Iranians want to win?
Agents of the Iranian government are believed to be supporting the two main Shiite political parties here – the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party -with money and other assistance. Both parties support a strong role for Islam in the Iraqi state; however, compared with the Iranian government itself, which is a strict theocracy, the Iraqi version is relatively moderate.
So if a Shiite majority is won in these elections, perhaps we’ll have civil unrest as a result of these revelations. But hey, that’s democracy. And if people try to subvert it, the system is oftentimes self-correcting.
What’s truly ironic is perhaps their fake votes won’t even be needed. Perhaps the people these democracy haters wanted to win will get enough votes to secure a seat in the parliament.
Interesting times ahead for Iraq,,,
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005 and is filed under Elections, The War On Terrorism, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 14th, 2005 at 5:46 pm
[...] But as Donklephant points out, it does point out the sad fact that they got INTO Iraq in the first place. This indicates some Iraqis would have known about it, or did a piss-poor job of checking what was coming in across the border. [...]
December 14th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
[...] But as Donklephant points out, it does point out the sad fact that they got INTO Iraq in the first place. This indicates some Iraqis would have known about it, or did a piss-poor job of checking what was coming in across the border. [...]
December 14th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
[...] But as Donklephant points out, it does point out the sad fact that they got INTO Iraq in the first place. This indicates some Iraqis would have known about it, or did a piss-poor job of checking what was coming in across the border. [...]