On Martial Law & Elections
I just put two and two together, folks.
Iraq has been declared (acknowledged?) under a state of martial law since the assualt on Fallujah began about a week ago. This entails travel restrictions, curfews, military police, the whole nine yards. This is all fine and good, and perhaps should have been done a few months ago. The martial law will continue until sometime in January.
Also coming in January, Iraq's first democratic elections. I do have my fingers crossed hoping this really works, but it seems like an abrupt transition, doesn't it? At best, there will be a three week period without martial law in which all the campaigning will be done. Iraqis spent decades under a military dictator, over a year of chaos after an invasion, several months more of martial law, and now we are pretending that it will only take a few weeks to install a democracy?
Ask yourself the question. If you were an Iraqi, would you trust the results of this election? Can we really expect society to just suddenly "open up" and become a liberal democracy that trusts in the electorate? Our election in 2000 was contested enough, and we are people with centuries of trust in the institutions of democracy. Iraqis have no such trust. As far as they know, the next president could become another dictator upon gaining power. Or the next government could severely discriminate against the minority parties. In a fragmented country with so many competing interests at work, it may not be realistic to expect everything to come together to form a 2 or 3 party system in the three weeks of peace and democracy that Iraq has coming. None of the minority groups are going to feel safe, and revolution or assasination may be viable options to the disenfranchised.
And don't ask me for a better idea yet. That is another blog, another day.
Iraq has been declared (acknowledged?) under a state of martial law since the assualt on Fallujah began about a week ago. This entails travel restrictions, curfews, military police, the whole nine yards. This is all fine and good, and perhaps should have been done a few months ago. The martial law will continue until sometime in January.
Also coming in January, Iraq's first democratic elections. I do have my fingers crossed hoping this really works, but it seems like an abrupt transition, doesn't it? At best, there will be a three week period without martial law in which all the campaigning will be done. Iraqis spent decades under a military dictator, over a year of chaos after an invasion, several months more of martial law, and now we are pretending that it will only take a few weeks to install a democracy?
Ask yourself the question. If you were an Iraqi, would you trust the results of this election? Can we really expect society to just suddenly "open up" and become a liberal democracy that trusts in the electorate? Our election in 2000 was contested enough, and we are people with centuries of trust in the institutions of democracy. Iraqis have no such trust. As far as they know, the next president could become another dictator upon gaining power. Or the next government could severely discriminate against the minority parties. In a fragmented country with so many competing interests at work, it may not be realistic to expect everything to come together to form a 2 or 3 party system in the three weeks of peace and democracy that Iraq has coming. None of the minority groups are going to feel safe, and revolution or assasination may be viable options to the disenfranchised.
And don't ask me for a better idea yet. That is another blog, another day.
posted by matt at 12:00 PM
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