To Spin the Vote in Ninevah, You Must Start With Diyala
With partial vote counts trickling out of Iraq, the issue of Ninevah has risen to the forefront. Today we get a 97% "no" vote from Anbar and an 82% "no" vote from Salahuddin; numbers that remain consistent with all earlier reports from these provinces. But in the same report we also get word that Diyala, by the narrowest of margins, provided a 50% "yes" vote with the result from Ninevah once again being delayed.
One thing that seems to be generally agreed upon is that there are more Sunnis in Ninevah than Diyala but not as many in Ninevah as in Salahuddin. Thus, given how the vote is almost completely breaking on ethnic and religious identity, one would expect the result in Ninevah to be somewhere in between that in Salhuddin and Diyala. Those two provinces are being viewed as the goalposts for the result in Ninevah.
We know the initial results given for Ninevah (78% "yes) and Diyala (70% "yes") were fraudulent. In the middle of last week, a new effort to provide a more sophisticated spin appeared with reports that Ninevah had a 54.6% "no" vote and Diyala also had a 54% "no" vote.
These nearly identical results make no sense given the general view that Ninevah has many more Sunnis than Diyala. Not surprisingly then, we get the third goal post shift with a report now that Diyala had a 50% "no" vote. No doubt the Ninevah number is being delayed to allow this number to set in so as to ultimately justify a "no" vote in Ninevah that is more than the Diyala number but less than that needed for the veto.
The so-called "Independent Election Commission of Iraq" has proudly declared that there was no evidence of fraud with regard to vote. Yet, this is a laughable assertion which certainly proves the Commission's complete lack of independence. Certainly the initial vote results given for Ninevah and Diyala were fraudulent. The delays and fluctuating numbers from the two battleground provinces of Ninevah and Diyala also would given any reasonable person pause as to a belief in the legitimacy of this process. Ignoring these fact taints the legitimacy of the election, and worse, serves to bolster the arguments of the few extremists, including the terrorist Zarqawi, who unsuccessfully argued for a boycot of the election.
One thing that seems to be generally agreed upon is that there are more Sunnis in Ninevah than Diyala but not as many in Ninevah as in Salahuddin. Thus, given how the vote is almost completely breaking on ethnic and religious identity, one would expect the result in Ninevah to be somewhere in between that in Salhuddin and Diyala. Those two provinces are being viewed as the goalposts for the result in Ninevah.
We know the initial results given for Ninevah (78% "yes) and Diyala (70% "yes") were fraudulent. In the middle of last week, a new effort to provide a more sophisticated spin appeared with reports that Ninevah had a 54.6% "no" vote and Diyala also had a 54% "no" vote.
These nearly identical results make no sense given the general view that Ninevah has many more Sunnis than Diyala. Not surprisingly then, we get the third goal post shift with a report now that Diyala had a 50% "no" vote. No doubt the Ninevah number is being delayed to allow this number to set in so as to ultimately justify a "no" vote in Ninevah that is more than the Diyala number but less than that needed for the veto.
The so-called "Independent Election Commission of Iraq" has proudly declared that there was no evidence of fraud with regard to vote. Yet, this is a laughable assertion which certainly proves the Commission's complete lack of independence. Certainly the initial vote results given for Ninevah and Diyala were fraudulent. The delays and fluctuating numbers from the two battleground provinces of Ninevah and Diyala also would given any reasonable person pause as to a belief in the legitimacy of this process. Ignoring these fact taints the legitimacy of the election, and worse, serves to bolster the arguments of the few extremists, including the terrorist Zarqawi, who unsuccessfully argued for a boycot of the election.
posted by Macswain at
11:45 AM
1 Comments:
PP,
I'll leave your question to jandrew. But let me ask you this - given the large Sunni participation in this vote (something that had the benefit of making the extremist boycot cllers like Zarqawi look weak), we will have blown yet another opportunity if the vote is not viewed as legitimate by those Sunnis who participated?
I don't understand this desperate need to have the constitution pass when its failure or even a verifiable and unquestionable vote may have forced the Shiites and Kurds to abandon their spoils-of-war approach in favor of fully integrating all groups into the Iraqi government.
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Macswain, at 4:10 PM
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