Doug Struck of the Washington Post reports that Iraqi Sunnis claim last week’s election was rigged.
Sunni and secular political parties angrily claimed Tuesday that Iraq’s national election was rigged, threatening to leave in shambles the delicate plan to bring Iraq’s wary factions together in a new government.
Faced with an emerging strong victory by the religious Shiite group that has close ties to Iran, the minority Sunnis demanded a new election and hinted darkly that the violence of the insurgency would be accelerated by the suspicions of fraud.
Early voting results announced by Iraqi electoral officials yesterday, reflecting two-thirds of the ballots, showed religious (mostly Shiite) groups taking a commanding lead. Today, with 95 percent of votes counted, it appears conservative religious Shiite groups will dominate the parliament and the selection of the country’s prime minister.
Former prime minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular slate appeared likely to take a small, fourth-place role in the government, also questioned the results of Thursday’s polling and called a meeting for Wednesday of other groups angry with the outcome.
And Salah Mutlak, who headed an independent Sunni slate, said, “I don’t think there is any practical point for us for being in this National Assembly if things stay like this.”
This is not a positive development, I suspect.
“This is not a positive development, I suspect.”
Oh, Maha, that’s because it hasn’t been explained properly. I bet those conservative Shiites are really conservative CHRISTIAN Shiites and are going to make everything better and every Iraqi kid will get a new school desk and a pony.
Or some damn thing that Bush will come up with.
There’s nothing new here. The only difference now is that Bush has played the last hand in his poker game of nation building while the Iranians are still holding a full house. I don’t think the sunnis are just going to lay down and accept their current position. The struggle for power between the Iraqi factions that has been festering beneath the surface to a large extent is now going to erupt and Bush is going to be forced to take sides in a civil war… a concern that was dismissed when god promised Bush the victory in Iraq..
” The Lord told me to take Saddam out..So I did”
Holy habaneros, swami. That’s what he’s gonna say.
I didn’t even realize Diebold had won a no-bid contract to supply voting machines in Iraq.