The Iraqi Elections: No International Oversight - Legitimate or Not?

[kentuck]

The NYTimes is reporting that seven nations had agreed to observe the elections in Iraq in January - from Amman Jordan! So who's gonna be observing the elections?? Chalabi and Allawi? If there are no observers on sight, will that make it more difficult to argue that the actions are legitimate?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/23/politics/23elect.html?oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=

<snip>
Representatives of seven nations met in Ottawa this week to recruit international observers for the Iraqi elections and agreed to watch the vote, but from the safety of Amman, Jordan.

They said it was too dangerous to monitor the voting in Iraq, meaning international observers are unlikely for the elections on Jan. 30 - making them the first significant vote of this sort recently with no foreign presence, United Nations officials say.

The United Nations, the European Union and many nongovernmental groups involved in election and democracy projects are helping to organize and administer the vote. As a result, they argue, acting as monitors would be a conflict of interest.

The United States, a senior State Department official said, "will have as low a profile as possible during the election."

....more

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. No observers in the country

because of the danger....that should tell you something.

[DELUSIONAL]

2. As Legitimate as Ohio's

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sparkly]

4. By whom? n/t

[kentuck]

5. Why??

Why should it be considered 'legitimate'? Explain....

[AntiCoup2K4]

6. As legitimate as Hamid Unocal-Karzai's was in Afghanistan.

The joke of a war on terror is about two things : Zionism and control of energy markets. So that requires that the puppets stay in place. And the fact that Chalabi turned up on the ballot is very interesting. Say if he narrowly beat Allawi, then his much publicized falling out with the PNAC'ers would be trotted out to claim that the "new" Iraqi government was completely independent of US control.

Yeah right......

[RafterMan]

7. So who do you think *really* won the Afghani election?

nt

[RafterMan]

8. Legitimacy will not derive from international observers

I'm guessing Iraqis have a pretty good sense of the what parties are popular and will have a pretty good sense of whether, after the election, those parties are being allowed to follow their platform without too much interference.

The problem is that even if the election does produce a representative government, will the minority consent to be governed by the majority? No number of observers would solve this.