Elections Without Monitors
One of the under-appreciated facts about the two elections we've now seen in Iraq is that they took place almost entirely without the sort of election monitoring that's customary in serious democratic transitions. Suzanne Nossel has a good article about this on the TAP website. I'm not so sure about her conclusion:
The Bush administration could have enlisted international observersI did some reporting on this before the January 2005 election, and the very strong impression I got was that the sort of people who do this monitoring were genuinely unwilling to do it in Iraq. Noteably, IRI and NDI weren't uninvolved in that election -- they just weren't leaving the Green Zone. Maybe things had changed by October 2005, but I haven't seen any broader indications that the security situation has radically improved.
I think this falls under the category of "things that should have been thought harder about before the war" not because with more forethought we could have avoided the problem, but because if people had appreciated these problems they would have been less likely to support the war. On its own, this isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it speaks to the reality that democracy-promotion is very logistically difficult and there was never any reason to think that postwar Iraq would be a very promising candidate. Normally monitors and other groups only get involved when the political situation has already developed in a positive way to some extent -- we don't have an understanding of how to make this sort of thing work in such a hostile environment.
Had that happened, the people of Iraq would now be celebrating the passage of their constitution rather than wondering whether the results of the election will hold.
Do we know that the constitution would have passed at all if the election had been monitored?
October 19, 2005 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
The notion this election was too logistically difficult to monitor doesn't pass the smell test.
It's a hostile country and inspectors fear for their safety, true. However, that's in large part due to a failure of US policy to provide them security. They want to be there monitoring elections, given enough security.
Where are the facts on logistics? If one states it was a logistical problem, show me the facts. Otherwise, it’s just more gossip and popular myth making.
How many polling places were there? Where could monitors have been enlisted from? How many people and video cameras would it have taken? How many troops to provide them reasonable security?
Just based on rough calculations, are we saying it was logistically impossible to dedicate something like 30,000 troops to guarding 3000 monitors, with 3000 video cameras for one election day? I find that difficult to believe.
If we don’t actually have any of those facts, then why are we claiming there was a legitimate logistical problem, and just playing the pundit gossip game?
We've known for years Iraq will have major elections whose credibility will be questioned. This is not the first example. I find it extremely difficult to believe we (the US government and military with out allies) couldn’t have put together some better sort of election monitoring by now, had we actually wanted to.
Let's face reality. Everybody expects there to be tremendous fraud and ballot stuffing. We all know this. We also knew which powers the Bush admin is backing, and who they're funneling aid to under the table. If we had election monitors and exposed the fraud in such a compelling manner that not even the MSM could ignore it, that would be a tremendous embarrassment to this admin.
That's why there was a lack of adequate monitors. It's not logistics or any other silly excuse.
October 19, 2005 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I've done some election observation - most recently in Ukraine. The kind of groups that do this (eg. OSCE) look for opportunities, rather than wait to be asked. The fact is, the security situation is so bad in Iraq that no such organization could, in good conscience, send in observers. As a matter of fact, I just got a missive about observing in Haiti, where they are rather hard up for volunteers; the situation in Haiti is very bad - hence the dearth of volunteers. But the circumstances in Iraq are exponentially worse.
It is often overlooked that election observation is only partly about what happens on election day. The short-term observers (ie. poll watchers) get almost all the press, but are vastly overrated. Long-term observers are much more important in ensuring the legitimacy of the process. The recent election in Egypt provides a good example: people watching the polling stations on election day may have been impressed by orderly voting processes, etc (actually, they wouldn't since the gov't impeded independent observation, contrary to court orders). But without long-term observers, one wouldn't realize that a significant population didn't even bother registering because the multi candidate option didn't become available until after registration closed; one might also fail to understand the impact of state controlled media and other pre-election coercion.
Regardless, Iraq had neither LTOs nor STOs. This raises a fundamental question: what does it say about the legitimacy of the voting process when it is so inherently dangerous as to prevent independent observation?
October 19, 2005 4:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not certain that monitors would have made a difference in most of Iraq; definitely, in one or two provinces where the vote could have gone either way, monitors would have mattered, but in most provinces, the result was already obvious; the constitution would obivously win the populr vote by a landslide, and the two provinces that rejected it were practically certain to have done so. The provinces where 90% plus voted for the Constitution would have gone that way in any situation, and in most of the remainder, the "no" vote would not have been near 67%. So in practical terms, it is only one or two provinces where the votes could have actually changed things.
I commented on the possibilities of election rigging here. It seems to me that the only real difference between them passing the constitution and not passing it is whether or not Bush gets to have a PR moment; other than that, I think the situation in Iraq will deteriorate no matter what.
October 19, 2005 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not certain that monitors would have made a difference in most of Iraq
It matters very much. How can you even suggest fraudulent elections don't matter, when we're occupying the country?
There were for example 99% turn out in some regions. That's obvious fraud, giving ammo to the insurgency and international anti-American sentiment.
Our occupation of Iraq during fraudulent elections smacks of imperialism, especially considering our record of backing coups and installing dictators around the globe, including Saddam!
By having fraudulent elections on our watch, we're contributing to a fraudulent government in Iraq, a Muslim country sitting on the world largest known oil reserves.
Militants thrive on that sort of stuff. That's the old CIA recipe for a full course of "Blowback Surprise" as cooked throughout the ME, Asia, and Latin America. It's certain to have consequences not just for Iraq, but for US as well.
You can bet the next AQ recruiting video will mention it explicitly, and who knows how many would be terrorists on the fence will tip over due to that. The British terrorists for example were all well educated, and made their decision for militancy based exactly on these sorts of issues.
Even if Iraq is bound to deteriorate as you suggest, how it does so is very important. If they tear themselves apart, it's a local issue. If they spin apart during a US occupation with fraudulent elections, then we're the target for anger.
It matters, very, very much.
October 19, 2005 8:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Iraq voted on a Constitution, which was being revised a few days before the election, which was revised to allow the incoming parliament to modify it, and which was written (supposedly) by a parliament whose members were largely secret to avoid assassinations. There simply isn't a way for an average Iraqi to have known the details about that constitution before voting. Then the lack of security for citizens there had to have prevented many people from even considering voting, leaving the voting to those with a very strong opinion and probably something personal to gain by its passage. Then, the whole election system was unmonitored by any neutral observers and the actual voting was also unmonitored. So, what are the odds on this having been an honest election?
Nevertheless, Iraq now will have a Constitution, the content of which is not clearly known, and which is subject to major revisions very quickly. We call this Democracy! So, was it worth the deaths of 2000 US servicemen?
October 19, 2005 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
How can you even suggest fraudulent elections don't matter, when we're occupying the country?
(a) What I mean is that there are only one or two provinces in which fraud might have changed the outcome of hte election. The Shiite Arab/ Kuridsh majority voted overwhelmingly for the constitution and the Sunni overwhelmingly against it. The only way it would have been defeated is if 3 provinces had vetoed it with a 2/3 vote. So the only way that fraud would have made a difference would be if it had caused some provinces that had actually voted 2-to-1 against the constitution appear to have voted against the constitution by a smaller margin, or for the constitution. As far as I can tell, there were only three or four provinces that would have plausibly voted >2/3rds to veto the constitution, and in two of them, they did veto it, so any fraud was unsuccessful. So that leaves only one or two provinces where fraud might have made a difference in whether or not they chose to veto, and thus only one or two provinces where vote fraud might have made a difference.
I was not denying that vote fraud is a bad thing, just that in most places it would not have altered the election results enough to have altered whether or not the constitution passed.
Our occupation of Iraq during fraudulent elections smacks of imperialism,
If there was fraud, I am not certain that the US was behind it. It seems likely, in my opinion, that a lot of Shia and Kurds may have decided to rig the eelction for their own benefit, and the US can't afford to investigate or call them on it becasue we need their support. So rather than imperialism, a fraudulent election may smack of our loss of control over the situation.
October 19, 2005 11:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just about everyone I know that supported the war did so because the Bush administration scared the hell out of them. I never heard anyone talk about democracy in Iraq. No one I know cares now either. They just want to get the hell out of there.
I feel terrible that the US wrecked a country and will leave it more of a mess than before we invaded it but I didn't support the war.
Everybody from GE to Blackwater has a financial interest in continuing this war until the taxpayers pull the plug. We entered this war because the Republicans needed a reason to spend half a trillion dollars on themselves.
And you know what? I'm coming out of the closet. The investor class planned and executed 9/11. I'm sick to death of hearing about Osama bin Laden and so is everyone else I know. For pete's sakes, if the Long Island Railroad engineeers can talk openly about Americans being behind 9/11, so can I.
Duh - $1 trillion in profit for the investor class vs a mythical vision of Muslim world domination. I'm a damned good auditor and the investor class takes it.
Rattle on all you want. I'm not going to waste my time listening.
October 20, 2005 12:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Clarification - That's half a trillion for the war on Iraq and half a trillion on homeland security. The biggest swindle in world history.
October 20, 2005 12:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Glaivester -
You're completly missing the point. Regardless, perceptions are what matter most in regards to the elections, because it is perceptions which will determine a civil war or anti-US sentiment, including terrorism.
We're occupying the country. That makes us responsible for what happens there in the eyes of all of the world and esp Muslims and Arabs.
It's also a well know fact we've been funneling extremly large sums to pay for campaigns, running our pet x-pats, etc. We've already attemped to rig elections there and in Afghanistan, and the only people who don;t know it are a portion of Americans who's media outlets haven't covered the facts. All the rest of the world has covered it.
October 20, 2005 3:21 AM | Reply | Permalink