This is showing why elections is a no win situation for U.S.
Choices:1) Promote a civil war to stop election a "lose lose" choice. 2) Massive fraud to see Allawist secularist win will be laughed at worldwide(except amongst maybe 50-55% of U.S. public that have no contact with reality anymore) and will be faced with a huge uprising by Shi'ites, a lose lose situation OR 3)watch Shi'ite sectarians win in landslide and then be asked to leave Iraq(a lose,lose situation).
<<Shiites rally to Iraq vote's call
30 minutes ago Top Stories - Chicago Tribune
By Liz Sly Tribune foreign correspondent
Around the gold-domed mosque of Kadhimiya, in the heart of one of Baghdad's oldest Shiite neighborhoods, fresh white banners exhorting Iraqis to vote flutter in the winter sunshine alongside posters of snowy-bearded ayatollahs.
"Your ballot is better than a bullet in a battle," declares one banner. "A vote is more valuable than gold," says another, alongside a third that proclaims: "Not voting rewards terrorism."
There still is plenty of terrorism in Iraq (news - web sites), and insurgents hold sway across much of the Sunni heartland. But in Shiite neighborhoods such as Kadhimiya, election fever is building for a vote set for Jan. 30 that almost certainly will end centuries of Sunni domination over Iraq's Shiite majority.
"This election, for me, will be the happiest moment in my life, because it means we will end the occupation," said Ahmad al-Asadi, who sells mobile phones from a little store alongside the Kadhimiya mosque, a Shiite shrine.
That's how Shiite leaders are pitching the vote: as a chance to end America's military presence in Iraq peacefully, through the ballot box. It also is a chance for Iraq's long-downtrodden Shiites, who account for 60 percent of the population, to throw off centuries of oppression by the Sunni minority and take a commanding role in the country's government.
To that end, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the revered Shiite cleric, has set aside the traditional distance he keeps from politics and is spearheading a get-out-the-vote campaign to encourage Shiites to take part.
In the Hayat Hotel, which caters to pilgrims coming to worship at the nearby shrine, Amir Mohammed Ahmad recently received a stack of posters from his mosque to hang in each of his hotel's 17 rooms. They feature a picture of al-Sistani under the slogan "Voting in the Election is a Patriotic Duty," along with a brief explanation of the rules.
"As [Shiites], we usually obey the main marjaya [religious leader], and Sistani has asked us to participate in the elections. That now is like an obligation for us," Ahmad explained. "It doesn't mean he's telling us whom to vote for. He's advising us for our own benefit."
But al-Sistani is going further than that. In a bid to ensure Shiites vote as a bloc, he is organizing a coalition of major Shiite parties that will present a unified slate of candidates. They include the two biggest Shiite parties, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Islamic Dawa Party, along with a host of smaller parties and independents.
Almost all of those on the list will be religiously oriented parties, whose goals include the Islamization of Iraq in accordance with Shiite practices.
Sunnis fear vote
That is one reason that so many Sunni Arabs, who account for about 20 percent of the population, are wary of the election. Not only can they expect to see their traditional dominance of Iraqi politics eroded, they also fear being forced to submit to a Shiite form of Islam that they fiercely oppose.(edit; Shi'tes win Sunni Arabs will likely start attacking Shi'ites and SunniKurds will declare themselves independent, freaking out Turkey and likely Iran---so what is U.S. to do????? They are NOT leaving(Bush certitude, his faith; is at stake; his inability to say "i was wrong" plus the Neo-Con agenda must be serve)--IMO-Welles)
Just across the Tigris River from Kadhimiya lies the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya, where the insurgency enjoys strong support and shootouts between black-masked rebels and U.S. troops are commonplace. Here there are no election posters, no slogans encouraging people to vote, and it is hard to find anyone who will admit wanting to vote.
"No families here will vote," said Saleh Obaidi, a food-ration distributor charged with dispensing voter forms. "These forms are useless because no one wants this election."
To register voters, Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission is using the Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)-era food-rationing system, which reaches almost every household in the country and lists about 13.9 million Iraqis older than 18.
People collecting their rations this month also receive a form listing the names of eligible voters in their family. If names are missing or wrong, they are to correct the form and return it next month, eliminating the need for anyone to publicly declare their interest in voting by showing up at a voter-registration center.
But in some Sunni areas, preparations are well behind schedule. In the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, where U.S. Marines launched their assault on Fallujah earlier this month, and in some parts of the northern city of Mosul, the food-distribution centers are closed because of the violence.
Even if voters do not receive their forms, as long as their names appear on the food ration list they will be able to vote, said Abdul Hussein Hindawi, the head of the electoral commission. Just in case, the commission is working on plans to allow voters to register on Election Day, he said.
Whether Sunnis will want to do so is another question. The most powerful Sunni organization, the Association of Muslim Scholars, says it will boycott the elections. And even in neighborhoods hardly afflicted by the insurgency, many Sunnis say they will be too afraid to vote.
"When Saddam was in power, I did not vote for him, and so do you expect me to go and vote now? No way, it's not safe," said Manal Mustafa, 51, as she collected her family's rations, along with the voter form, in the mostly peaceful and mostly Sunni neighborhood of Zayouna. Also, she added, "we have no idea who the candidates are."
That's another problem confronting the Sunni parties that want to participate in the elections. Most parties aren't well-known, and their names are hard to find on the list of 217 parties, groupings and individuals registered so far.
None has applied to run from the Sunni provinces north and west of Baghdad; the deadline for those areas has been extended to Thursday in the hope that more Sunni groups will sign up.
New system complicated
Under a complicated system of proportional representation, voters will choose lists of party candidates for seats in a 275-member assembly, which in turn will vote for a government to run the country while the legislators draw up a new, permanent constitution.
But many Iraqis, accustomed only to voting "yes" periodically to the continued rule of Hussein, do not understand the rules, said Hatem Mukhlis, whose party, the National Iraqi Movement, has joined calls by numerous other Sunni parties for the elections to be delayed.
"Everything's going at a really slow pace. Lots of Iraqis don't even know what the election is about," Mukhlis said. "I don't see the pace to guarantee we will be ready by the end of January. We need more enticements to get the Sunnis to come out and vote."
What those enticements could be is hard to imagine, because even if Sunnis do turn out in strength, they won't be able to win a majority of seats in the assembly. Yet if they boycott, they likely will hand the Shiites an even bigger majority.
"It's a zero-sum game. If the Sunnis don't show, it will amplify the majority of the Shiites," said Juan Cole, history professor at the University of Michigan and an authority on Iraq, who calculates that Shiites could account for as much as 75 percent of the new assembly if Sunnis do not vote.
That would give them a commanding role in the drafting of the new constitution, leaving Sunnis feeling even more isolated from the political process and likely fueling support for the insurgency, Cole said.
But postponing the elections will not change the demographics. A delay would risk alienating the Shiites while giving insurgents even more time to organize against the elections, say Western diplomats who are eager to see them go ahead on schedule.
In Kadhimiya, Shiites say they won't countenance any delay, though Ahmad, the hotelier, says he understands Sunni concerns.
"One hundred percent, the Shiites will win," he said. "And for sure there will be trouble, because the Kurds don't want the Shiites, and the Sunnis don't want the Shiites. Nobody wants the Shiites."
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