The Shi’ia Election
George at Old Fashioned Patriot started the cycle by linking to Swopa’s post at Needlenose on the Iraqi election. Then Steve Gilliard had a post The Shi’ia Won which quoted Juan Cole’s views of the election. Professor Cole closed the net by linking to Swopa.
You should read them, but the short version: this was the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s election, not Bush’s, and it was designed to give the majority Shi’ia the political power their numbers deserve.
The Shi’ia turned out in large numbers, the Kurds in lower numbers, because they really want a separate state, and the Sunnis probably didn’t make it into double digits.
The Sunnis didn’t turn out because of the safety issue, which gave Sunni politicians the cover to call for boycotting the elections. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Sunni leaders were helping the insurgents to make the “safety issue” worse.
