Iraq’s independent elections commission announced Thursday that the parliamentary elections campaign, scheduled to start Sunday, would be postponed for five days, as confusion reigned over an appeals court decision that overturned a ban on hundreds of candidates.
How can unknown candidates have any chance in this election if they have just 24 days to advertise themselves and talk to the Iraqi people? A one month campaign was already a tight squeeze. How can the Iraqi people get to know the candidates in just three weeks?
Meanwhile the well-known and wealthy candidates like Allawi have been effectively campaigning via the media for weeks now. Iraq Pundit notes that "Some posters already are on the walls, and candidates are on TV several times a day talking about how much better they are than the next guy." This is extremely unfair to lesser known candidates.
To many Iraqis, Maliki's government seems to be trying everything they can to undermine candidates who may pose a threat to the incumbents in charge.
Most people seem to agree that Iraq should get on with its election.
4 comments :
"How can unknown candidates have any chance in this election if they have just 24 days to advertise themselves and talk to the Iraqi people? A one month campaign was already a tight squeeze. How can the Iraqi people get to know the candidates in just three weeks?"
Good points, I agree with them all.
Welcome to your new 'democracy'.
Wow,it's Bruno. Thought you were dead or something Bruno. Notice how the ban was overturned. That shows democracy is working is working in Iraq. An independendent judiciary is a must for any semblance of freedom.
This was a nice development Mojo.
At last! Have they finally found a 'weapon of mass destruction' in Iraq?
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1248567/Iraq--Missile-discovered-Baghdad-s-Abu-Ghraib-suburb.html#ixzz0egtcq6Bb
'Politicians have already flocked to major cities. In Basra, residents complained recently that they had to spend long hours stuck in traffic as politicians drove by in large convoys.
The speaker of Parliament, Ayad al-Samarrai, spoke for more than an hour recently to dozens of Sunni tribal sheiks beneath a tent at the headquarters of the Independent Tribal National Coalition in Baghdad. His remarks were effectively a stump speech, in which he criticized the government for failing to provide security and jobs, while praising Parliament for a series of laws enacted under his leadership.
Some politicians are campaigning among the dead, literally. In the two biggest Shiite cemeteries in the country — the Valley of Peace in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, and the New Valley in Karbala — young men on three-wheeled vehicles embossed with pictures of candidates and party slogans move between mourners, handing out sweets and pamphlets.
And then there is the free-wheeling campaign on the Internet, the latest addition to politics in a nation where satellite dishes were banned until 2003. On Facebook, fan pages compete for supporters.'
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