Pressures may be mounting for a 6-month postponement of the Iraqi elections. There are now sketchy and inconsistent reports coming out of Al Jazeera and Debka that major parties besides the Sunni ones mentioned in the MSM have joined in asking for a postponement. Debka reports in a headline without a story (no permalink): “Fifteen leading Iraqi parties, including PM Allawi’s own faction, call for six-month postponement of January elections because of continuing violence.”
According to China View, Al-Jazeera reported a similar story but said that Allawi’s faction did not sign the call for a 6-month postponement. Here is part of China View’s version of the Al-Jazeera story:
More than 15 leading Iraqi parties called on Friday to delay the scheduled January elections by atleast six months, the Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV reported.Leaders of the political parties, led by Adnan Pachachi’s Independent Democratic Party, signed a joint petition after ameeting, urging to postpone the polls until mid-2005.Two major Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan(PUK) and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), both signed the document, according to the report.
A representative from Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National Accord Party attended the meeting held in Pachachi’s residence in Baghdad, but did not sign on the petition, said the channel without mentioning the source.
If these reports are true (and given their inconsistency they may well not be), then the addition of 2 major Kurdish parties in the call for a postponement may signal a turning point in the effort to postpone the Iraqi elections. I hope that in the next few days the MSM can confirm or refute the Debka and Al-Jazeera stories.
Postponement would represent a major setback for both Allawi and the Bush administration, since disrupting the elections is a major goal of the terrorists. Given that what is good for Bush or Allawi is not in itself the test here, what course might be better for the Iraqi people is hard to know. Just as the turnover of the government to the Iraqis on time proved to be an effective move (and apparently popular with Iraqis), an on-time election might have a similarly positive effect. And yet, if waiting 6 months leads to a safer election in more areas of Iraq, then postponement would be wise, however embarrassing it might be to the Bush Administration. Nonetheless, deciding to wait until the security situation is improved would not necessarily improve security and might worsen it if it emboldened the enemies of democracy.
Is democracy delayed democracy denied? Or is democracy delayed democracy ensured? I hope for wisdom and good fortune, but don’t necessarily expect either in such a difficult situation.
UPDATE: Charles Krauthammer, making an analogy to the US elections of 1864 and 1868, argues that the Iraqi election would be legitimate even without Sunni areas (tip to Betsy).
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