Bush hails Iraq vote as 'a resounding success'

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From the NY Times:

 

It does indeed appear that the elections went better than even an optimistic conservative like myself could have hoped for. The picture that Bion painted in his post above has been replicated by numerous sources...high turnout, minimal violence, a strong sense of resolve within the Iraqi populace to stare down the insurgents and learn how to self govern.

As I watch them vote, I just wish that Americans had that much fearless love to exercise a right to vote.

 

It sure does, even if looking at things in a very pessimistic way the election looks a lot better than what was feared.

 

Well I'm very postively surprised by these elections. Allthough the process still was not very democratics and the Sunnis were quite passive, the percentage turned out to be very good and insurgent attacks very low. I just hope they get a working government, army and economy up as fasta as possible so this will be over with. I'm still a bit sceptical about how strong the first government will be and I would like to see a parlamentary re-election in Iraq if/when things calm down.

 

I'm not. People want to be free. It is in our nature. And we all share this desire, regardless of race, religion, or place of origin. This (the election) makes me very happy.

 

This is the first really good thing to happen to the country in half a century. Let's hope things keep going for the better.

 

I also wonder how many made an informed vote, I reckon most of them voted because they could. I wonder if there was anyone but Allawi that people knew they could vote on.

Additionally there were no observers at the location and the few journalists who were there were restricted by security considerations. Sadly I do not think we can rule out a bit of hanky panky.

 

Seconded. I found myself crying tears of joy.

 

Have we heard anything about the results yet? Up til now all the talk seems to have been about that they were done without hundreds of casualties. Who will win? Who are the candidates even? What are they electing? Is there anyone except Allawi running?

 

Hmm, the list if candidates here were different than another I saw in a paper paper. I dont remember the name but one cleric was hailed as one of the main contenders, the cleric which got al-Sadr to calm down. This dude was not on BBC's lists, all info I have yet seen have been from before the election. It is two days ago, one supposes that a bit more info ought to have got out by now.

Thanks for the links though BTA =), the Iraqi assembly system looks similar to the Swedish system.

 

It might be a while before the vote comes in. I saw on the news the way the balloting was done - it was all paper ballots that were folded and stuffed into ballot boxes. So each one has to be individually unfolded and hand-counted - it's going to be a time consuming process. The thing I found amusing is there are literally dozens of political parties. While I imagine we will eventually get to the point that the political parties will dwindle to a managable number, it is quite possible for a canidate to receive 5% of the vote, and have this be the most of any other canidate!

 

Hmm, we have paper ballots here as well, perhaps a bit more sophisticated ones than those in Iraq but the same principle and everything is pretty much counted in less than 24h and quite reliable results are in in the early evening.

 

Oh yeah, it happens. Quite rarely do we see a candidate corner more than 50% of the seats. Half a dozen political party candidates and another dozen Independents.
Still I prefer this system to being straight jacketed in to 1 of 2 options /parties.

The paper ballots route is good for now IMO. Electronic ballot boxes give out information regarding how each BLOCK and residential sector voted. Atleast with paper ballots the candidate can only guess.

 

I'm thrilled by how well the elections went. I must admit, I'm certainly surprised - I thought they would be delayed at the least, if not be postponed indefinitely. Congratulations to the Iraqi people, and to the fledgling government who pulled it off. It would be a shame if it were to come out that the results were anything but legitimate. But I guess there's no reason to think anything is afoot at this point. I hope this is an indication of smooth(er) sailing from here on in, or at least that the worst is behind them. Extra kudos to our soldiers for keeping a handle of things so they could happen at all.

 

I'm quite aware that America is unusual in only having two dominant political parties. It is also unusual in the sense that it is the norm for one party to own over half the seats (it can happen that no party owns hallf the seats, as typically there are a few independents and third party canidates elected to Congress, but I'm guessing that number is only around 3%-5% of the total).

What surprises me however is the sheer number. I mean there are literally DOZENS of choices for each office. It seems like there's no way anyone can make an informed choice for who they are voting for, because quite frankly no one has the time to do their homework on that many canidates. Also, I was under the impression that in most other republics/democracies of the world, while there are far more than two significant political parties, that the number is no where near what it is in Iraq. I was under the impression that places in Europe as well as places like Australia and New Zealand had a handful of parties - I'm guessing around 5-7, but certainly no more than 10 significant ones.

 

Usually there are just two blocs even in the European democracies, it is just that within those blocs there are a few different parties. So instead of having different shades of for example democrats we have distinctly different parties. Through my experience so does most of the European political spectrum fit into what in the US would be labelled as the democratic party, only the fringe parties on either end would either be republicans to the right or nothing at all on the left.

 

This is excellent news. If the new Iraq government can hold itself together and establish control over the territory while remaining representative of its peope's interests, then that's nothing but good news for Iraq. I truly hope it stays that way, and that the US doesn't imitate Australia's treatment of East Timor following their independence (basically, we're sucking their natural resources dry).

The only bad thing I can see out of this is that it will be used to legitimise the current US administrations pre-emptive strike policy. But that's another topic for another thread, serious though it is.

@ Aldeth: We have several political parties in Australia, but only two are legitimate contenders to form government - the others are only chasing enough of the primary vote to gain Senate seats and (hopefully) a slice of the balance of power so that their interests can be accommodated. Somewhat depressingly, the biggest "minor parties" tend to be somewhat extremist in their approaches, although only one is heavily influenced by religious orthodoxy.