Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Sunnis and the election
If white South Africans had refused to participate in that nation's first-ever free elections back in 1994, nobody on earth would have argued that their lack of participation invalidated the election results.
Indeed.
4 Comments:
By 
TigerHawk, at
Wed Jan 26, 10:18:00 AM:
The argument that the elections are less legitimate if the Sunnis boycott has always been ridiculous. This extremely apt analogy makes that point clear. The only principled point is that a Sunni boycott may make that minority less willing to accept the elected government, and it may increase the chances for civil war. Fine. Most Western countries built their democratic institutions on the embers of a civil war. If that's what it takes for Iraq to become a real country with a real future instead of an artifact of European imperialism, so be it.
By Sluggo, at
Wed Jan 26, 12:32:00 PM:
There seems to be quite a number of fairly common words slipping from the grasp of comprehension of the left: 'legitimate', 'count', 'fair', and now the very concept of 'election' is getting a little slippery.
By the way, Mr. Hawk, I bow to you. Getting linked by Tim Blair, that's fancy.
By Gordon Smith, at
Wed Jan 26, 01:01:00 PM:
Jack,
The Sunni boycott won't invalidate the election, but the ballot will.
Voting in the New Iraq
By 
, at
Thu Jan 27, 03:37:00 AM:
And even there, voter participation was not affected by the Afrikaner terrorist groups. But then, the South African police were very, very good at dealing with threats to authority.
