Democracy comes to Iraq

Washington Post:

Facing a skeptical and sometimes hostile crowd, 13 candidates vying for seats on Baghdad's provincial council passed around a microphone for three hours during a town hall debate this month as voters threw out questions and challenged their answers.

"Should the militarizing of Iraq continue?" one woman sitting in the front row wanted to know.

"How are you going to deal with run-down buildings?" a man asked. "And the housing crisis?"

"How much have you spent on your campaigns?" an Iraqi journalist demanded. "Especially the big religious parties?"

At events like this one, at a social club in Baghdad, Iraqi politicians campaigning for seats in the Jan. 31 provincial elections have promoted themselves vigorously and engaged voters on both global and grass-roots issues.

This brand of retail politics marks a dramatic shift from campaigns conducted in 2005, the last time Iraq held elections nationwide. Amid growing violence at the time, most candidates ran largely faceless campaigns under the umbrellas of established parties defined by sect and religion.

While most of the established parties remain in the game, a staggering number of new faces and coalitions are jockeying for support at a time when American influence here is waning and dissatisfaction with the Iraqi government runs deep.

More than 14,000 candidates are competing for 440 seats on provincial councils in 14 of Iraq's 18 provinces. Some are running as independents, but the majority belong to more than 400 political blocs, known here as lists, roughly 70 percent of which are new.

...

The old blast walls are covered with campaign material. It looks like Iraq is finally understanding the possibilities of election politics. I suspect some came from watching the recent US campaign and the rest came from the dissatisfaction at the result of the previous elections. This is a very hopeful sign and I hope it carries over to the next Parliamentary election.

Those skeptics who said that Arabs were not good at democracy appear to be wrong at this point and President Bush is looking prescient.