Er, Yes but.

Joe Gandelman - World Leader Pretend (weak compliment, favourite resuscitated song of day, if I had any traffic I might apply it to myself) does mandatory election post. Which I feel compelled to question. (Not gaining popularity by doing this but look, it's not me whose burning the bridges. All I do is step one foot on it these days before I'm napalmed by some zealot. Oh well).

JG says ~

Iraq Election Results: It'll Require A Coalition

and goes on -horrified gasp! With comparisons!

...as in the United States...(read rest)

Actually, nobody needs to form a co-alition.

The purpose of this "election" was to elect a committee to write a constitution that would lay down guidelines for how a real government might be elected. There'll be another vote in December to see what people think about the constitution-to-be. If the constitution is accepted then a third election will be held to elect a "proper" government based on constitutional principles.

If the constitution proves unpopular the whole thing goes back to square one and somebody else has a go at writing it.

Basically the committee members are interested in representation from all sectors of Iraq so that the constitution has more chance of being considered legitimate in December. People in Iraq have proven to be critical voters in either withholding their votes or ignoring Allawi (as an incumbent his result is pitiful). Which means the focus is more on broadening ties with all sectors in a credibility leap, rather then trying to set up factional co-alitions.

In effect, this was not an election "as in the US" but just one step in a series of referendums.

It's probably a mistake for foreigners to start casting parties in power roles as they would in their own systems. Iraq could be developing something unique on it's own ~ let's not impose pre-formed expectation (unless we smell corruption, in which case anything is *sigh* open blogger fare).