http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/20005/When Vladimir Putin used illegal tactics to engineer the election of his hand-picked subordinate Ahmad Kadyrov as president of Chechnya last October, Western pundits were quick to condemn the election as a farce. Yet the same media talking heads have expressed little outrage at the series of equally farcical "elections" organized by the Bush administration in the name of exporting democracy, be it to Afghanistan or Iraq.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani recently expressed his unhappiness at the plans of the main U.S.-affiliated political parties to negotiate a "consensus slate" of candidates for the upcoming U.N. Security Council-mandated elections in Iraq.
In some countries, with a well-established parliamentary system and a history of active political parties and an inclusive public discourse, alliances between political parties are not necessarily a problem. In India, for example, such electoral alliances may be necessary to get smaller parties some degree of parliamentary representation. In Iraq, however, the effect may be extremely damaging.
According to a recent New York Times editorial, such a "consensus" slate could create "essentially a one-party election unless Iraq's fragmented independents manage to organize themselves into an effective new political force." Without adequate safeguards, wrote the Times, in an uncharacteristically direct manner, "Iraq's first free election may look uncomfortably like the plebiscites choreographed to produce 98 percent majorities for Saddam Hussein."
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