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I wrote this about a week ago, before any of the initial results were in. This is the final draft of my article on the Iraqi elections, which will be in the college alt. rag, due to hit stands March 1st.

The January 30th elections in Iraq were being hailed a success practically before the polls had closed. President Bush readily declared that the Iraqis had embraced democracy, and rejected the “anti-democratic ideology of the terrorists.” The number dead – only a few dozen – was suppose to (bizarrely enough) reinforce this position.

However, such unfettered optimism before the results were even in is cause for alarm. What will the recent elections in Iraq really accomplish? Will they bring legitimacy to something that – at the base of the matter – is still an occupation? This has yet to be seen, but common sense tells us to be more cautious than our government and media have been so far.

By Sunday night, turnout estimates as high as 72% were being circulated widely, a figure the mainstream media immediately clung to. It was eventually revealed that these estimates were made even before the polls had closed, by Farid Ayar, the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq. Ayar later downplayed his initial numbers, saying they were “only guessing” and based on “word-of-mouth estimates gathered informally.”

Since then, the estimates continue to fall. And even when they are confirmed (likely to happen by the time you’re reading this), the emphasis still shouldn’t be strictly on the official turnout – the 1967 presidential election in Saigon netted turnout numbers into the 80s.

The elections were primarily voting for a 275-member National Assembly, which will then draft a permanent constitution for Iraq. Voters chose from more than 100 lists, which were compromised of loose coalitions of parties and special interests – more than 7000 candidates all told.

Members for the National Assembly will then be chosen proportionally from the amount of votes a list received – so say a particular list received 20% of the vote. That list would then make up 20% of the National Assembly, or 55 members. The first 55 candidates on that list would be selected.

You might think a single list receiving 20% of the vote is a little high. But according to provisional results at the time of this writing, the United Iraqi Alliance netted nearly 50% of the vote alone.

In some ways, the system is remarkable – I know people who would kill for proportional representation in the United States – myself included. However, what looks good on paper might not work as well in a war ravaged country.

To bring any legitimacy to the occupation, the January elections had to be truly democratic. For if they aren’t perceived as such, then the very purpose is defeated out of hand. Because the elections aren’t simply for electing representatives – they’re an attempt to legitimize the new Iraq. And the only prerequisite for this new Iraq, in the minds of the current US administration, is having a stable, pro-US government in power. Elections are simply a perk, the means to a foregone conclusion.

One general red flag was the use of purple ink to dye the thumbs of those who had already voted. It’s a primitive but inexpensive solution to prevent people from voting multiple times. The problem is that we used the same system in Afghanistan – and there were widespread allegations of the ink being easily wiped off.

Whether or not the allegations are well-founded, however, is ultimately of little consequence – there was likely far worse voter fraud to prevent. And unfortunately, there was not a single foreign election monitoring body in Iraq on the day of the election – they were instead “observing” from across the border in Jordan. The interim Iraqi government had monitoring officials on hand, but does this government really have the legitimacy to self-monitor?

Another alarming aspect of the election was the inability of candidates or lists to actively campaign for votes. There was an official campaign period in the month leading up to the election, but the threat of violence (understandably) kept many from campaigning. Iraqi civilians were being told to remember the number of the list they wanted to vote for. Without knowing who were on the lists, or what their politics were, many had to rely on endorsements from popular leaders. For instance, Iranian Shi’a cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani endorsed list number 169 (the United Iraqi Alliance). But who exactly were the candidates on this list? Who knows!

How democratic is an election in which you can’t even name who you’re going to vote for?

Before election day, polls suggested that Sunni turnout was going to be much lower than their Shi’a or Kurdish counterparts – the result of Sunni misgivings about the election, as well as calls for a boycott by prominent Sunnis. Provisional results are indeed showing low Sunni turnout, and this will lead to an over-representation of Shi’a and Kurds in the National Assembly. The boycott will likely make Sunni fears of disempowerment a reality. The blame cannot be pinned on anyone, however it is a further blow to the validity of the National Assembly.

Last summer, there was the purported handover of power, the official end of the occupation. However, it was a farce, in the fact that the US still wields the power in Iraq even today. Nothing changed following the June handover of power – it was irrelevant political maneuvering. For these elections to be successful, there needs to be meaningful improvements in the quality of life in Iraq. But with the Bush administration refusing to provide any sort of timetable for the end of military operations, and indeed with new US military bases in Iraq being made permanent every day, the prospects for Iraq look dim.

People grow tired of the comparisons to Vietnam. I’ve grown tired of them. However as Iraq stretches on it’s hard not to notice the growing similarities. The 1967 elections in Saigon were to provide legitimacy for the government we installed in South Vietnam. It didn’t work in that instance, as history has shown. And there is no reason to believe that elections will change anything now, as long as America is on the ground in Iraq.

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And be sure to check out the latest This Modern World, which deals with the issue perfectly: Turning the Corner