[Previous entry: "Arabs Say Iraq Vote Gives Democracy a Bad Name"] [Next entry: "Brazilian leader faces taunts as forum pushes for reform"]

01/28/2005:

"A repeat performance"

The elections were dominated by calls for a boycott, religious edicts prohibiting voting, accusations of foreign meddling and a dominating foreign superpower.

Much though it may sound like Iraq in 2005, it was also the state of the country from the 1920s to 1958.

Sunday's vote has been painted as Iraq's introduction to democracy, but elections were held under British control as well. Some older Iraqis may have even participated in the 1954 elections, considered relatively free by some historians.

The majority of Iraq's previous parliamentary elections would not, however, have passed today's western standards, and regardless of how fair the polls might have been, there was no hope for a true representative democracy in a country controlled by Britain.

"The historical memory [Iraqis] have of democracy is of weak governments that were beholden to the British," said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

"Once there were elections, the British tried to get the governments that they would like ... and that ended up completely destroying democracy in Iraq."
Full Article: guardian.co.uk