01/30/2004: 
Breaking News
UN team to probe Iraq elections
from the BBC
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said he will send a team to Iraq within days to explore the possibility of holding early elections.
Mr Annan said he made the decision after receiving security assurances from US-led forces in Iraq.
Earlier this week a team of UN security experts arrived in Iraq to see if it was safe to send the elections team.
The US and Iraq had asked the UN to send experts to investigate whether a vote could be held by the end of June.
The US-led Coalition Provisional Authority has been resisting pressure from Shia Muslims in Iraq to hold direct elections before Washington transfers power to Iraqi leaders.
It has been planning a series of caucus meetings to choose an Iraqi assembly which would then select a government.
This is opposed by the majority Shia community, who favour an elected transitional legislature.
Tens of thousands of Shias have demonstrated against the CPA's plans.
The issue of free and direct elections is what will no doubt bring the nasty stew we call Iraq to boil over. The Shia community, which was oppressed under Saddam's rule, want elections now, since the US wants Iraq to be a democracy. The Shia are the majority in Iraq- but what if they vote Al- Sistani to be President, or and to make the Sunnis pay for what they did? Or what if they vote to have a semi- autonomous province like the Kurds' PUK in the north or better yet, to secede and join Shia- majority Iran?
The Iraqis want democracy now, elections now, or they will go bananas, and considering what they have been through, wouldn't you want to express yourself at the ballot box? But it is likely that they may vote to become 3 countries based on their religious and ethnic differences. Is this where World War III will begin? The Founding Fathers did not make the United States a direct democracy because they feared mob rule- but how do we explain the finer nuances of the Federalist Papers to these people? This may take awhile...
1 Annotation Submitted
Friday the 30th of January, Abe Froman noted:
The real problem is not that of direct vs. representitive democracy. The reason the U.S. supported the Baath party in the first place was because it was secular. The oppressed Shia want a religious led government. They are not likely to elect a president at all, they'd elect and iatolla. (my spelling may be off) A democratic Iraq is in the world's interest but so is an Iraq with a seperation of church and state.
