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Kucinich: Iraq Elections Will Be A Farce; No International Election Monitors in Iraq

by Open-Publishing - Wednesday 26 January 2005
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Wars and conflicts International Elections-Elected

Kucinich: Iraq Elections Will Be A Farce; Closest International Election Monitors Will Get Will Be Amman, Jordan
In Letter To Secretary of State Rice and Ambassador Negroponte; Kucinich Cites Lack Of International Monitors

WASHINGTON — January 26 — Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich (D-OH) today said that Iraqi elections, to be held on Sunday, will be a farce. In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and John Negroponte, the United States Ambassador to Iraq, Kucinich cites a total absence of international election monitors in Iraq for Sunday’s elections. The closest international monitors will get to Iraq on Sunday will be Amman, Jordan.

In the letter, sent today, Kucinich states,

"It is clear, in just five days before the Iraqi elections are to be held, that it will be impossible to conclude anything about the extent to which corruption, voter intimidation or outright fraud will mar the results. The exercise will regrettably be a farce. The results will have no recognized legitimacy whatsoever, and surely do not merit association with the United States’ notions of democracy.

"The elections will not yield certifiable results due to the pitifully small number of election observers, and the total absence of international election observers from the process. Indeed, according to the Washington Post, this is the first transitional election in the past two decades that will not have international election observers touring polling stations. As you know, international monitors have independently observed and evaluated elections throughout the world and have helped to point out when they are fraudulent and when they are legitimate."

In previous transitional elections across the world, the international community has sent teams of observers to polling sites. International observers have observed recent transitional elections in Nigeria in 1999, Haiti in 1990, East Timor in 2001-2002, and most recently in the second runoff election in the Ukraine.

No international body will have election monitors in Iraq on Sunday. The International Mission for Iraqi Elections, led by Canada’s chief electoral officer, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, and comprised of less than two dozen election experts from Australia, Bangladesh, Britain, Canada, Ghana, Hungary, Indonesia, Mexico, Panama and Yemen, will monitor the elections, not in Iraq, but instead operate from Amman, Jordan.

"I hope the Administration does not engage in wishful thinking that this farce of an election can beget anything other than farce. What a disservice we do to Iraqis who risk danger to cast their votes or run for office in this irredeemable formality. And what distortion of real democracy is being done in America’s name: It will surely discredit the United States in the eyes of the world," Kucinich concludes in his letter.

http://www.commondreams.org/news200...

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Forum posts

  • Congressman Kucinich calls it like it is. Let’s get out of Iraq and stop the farce and hypocrisy.

  • Go Dennis! I’m a Minnesotan and you do Paul Wellstone justice. We need more his feistiness from everyone.

    • THE BUSH administration and its media cheerleaders will declare the “dawning of democracy” in Iraq no matter what happens with the election result. They hope that enough Iraqis manage to cast ballots that the results lend legitimacy to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

      But the elections have nothing whatsoever to do with democracy.

      U.S. generals claim that the residents of only four of Iraq’s 18 provinces were not able to “fully participate” in the voting. Good news, until you sit down with the population statistics and realize—as the generals all know—that those four provinces contain more than half of the population of Iraq.

      No one who opposes the U.S. government’s war on the Iraqi people should accept that these elections are remotely legitimate. Observers didn’t even set foot in Iraq—but will remain safe in Amman, Jordan, apparently relying on reports from U.S. forces to determine if the vote was fair or corrupt.

      But the truth is that the entire election process was corrupted—by U.S. occupiers determined that the vote should serve Washington’s interests. In return for allowing them to be held, the U.S. arranged for the elections to decide little. The main job of the 275-seat Transitional National Assembly elected on January 30 will be to draw up a new constitution that will lead to elections for yet another government in 10 months.

      In all likelihood, Washington is not in immediate danger of being told to leave by a democratically elected Iraqi government.

      The U.S. has an agenda in Iraq that rules out genuine expressions of democracy. For one, it wants to control Iraq’s vast oil reserves—the world’s second largest. Iraq is also central to the Bush administration’s vision of expanded American empire in the Middle East—the future home to a network of a dozen military bases, according to the plans of Pentagon hawks.

      Washington oversaw in Vietnam in the 1960s and El Salvador in 1982.

      The purpose of these elections—organized, financed and choreographed by the United States—was to persuade U.S. citizens and especially Congress that we were invading these countries and supporting a savage war against government opponents at the invitation of a legitimate, freely elected government, The main purpose of a demonstration election is to legitimize an invasion and occupation, not to choose a new government, or in the case of the US election to legitimize a crooked corporate puppet.