For some Arabs, it’s elections season

Iraqis, Palestinians turn out in millions to elect their representatives

BAGHDAD - Sami Orfali

RAMALLAH - Nada Mozaffar

WASHINGTON DC - Scott Lurie

February 2005

It keeps on getting better for the Middle East, or so it seems. More than 60 percent of Iraqis dared terrorists and turned out in millions to elect their representatives in the first free election the country ever witnesses. In Palestine, Palestinians elected their municipal councils as well as Mahmoud Abbas, the person President George Bush called President Abbas instead of Chairman during the American President’s State of the Union Address 2005.

“The shift in American position is a clear indication that this administration is serious about seeing the establishment of a Palestinian state coming around,” said Tina Jubar, a student at the American University in Washington.

But the “borders of this state and the extent of its sovereignty remain to be decided and rather problematic,” according to Yehia Hag Omar, a Sudanese student at the same university.

Telling by the tone of their media, Palestinians and Israelis sounded jubilant, however, with the holding of the first Palestinian-Israeli summit in Egypt in the presence of Abbas, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon, Jordanian King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Husni Mubarak.

“All is good, communication is good. We might not have our state coming to life as soon as we aspire to, but at least we feel we are on the right path,” Salim Barghouti, a Ramallah-based activist, told Alternative. “At least violence has stopped and we’re back to talking with the Israelis,” he added.

In Baghdad, Alternative’s Sami Orfali reported that despite the bloody attacks that followed the day of elections, Iraqis felt democracy was their only way out of years of oppression followed by the terror mainly practiced by former oppressors now on the run.

“The high turnout was a clear message to everyone, especially those claiming that the Iraqis had at times endorsed so-called resistance, that Iraqis have been fed up with violence and have opted for democracy as the only means for resolving their disagreements,” said Omar Mohammed, a journalist.

By the time this publication went to print, the ticket supported by Grand Shiite Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the United Iraqi Alliance, swept 48 percent of the 275-seat interim parliament, or 130 seats. The united Kurdish ticket came out second with 26 percent of the vote, meanwhile the ticket of interim Premier Iyad Allawi ranked third with 14 percent of the vote. The interim constitution stipulates that a government must secure the approval of two-thirds of the parliament to be formed.

Results indicate that no single faction can form a government on their own. “This will open the door for a lot of bargaining and negotiations, an indication of healthy democracy and the abandonment of terror and oppression,” Mohammed argued.

Mohammed said that fears that the Shiites might demand the formation of an Iran-style theocracy in Iraq are unjustified since any such step needs two-thirds of the National Assemblies, a fact which proponents of such a state clearly lack.