Well…The elections in Iraq are only a month away…Please post all relevant posts under this thread…Here is Mr. Carter’s assessment of Iraqi elections .As usual, the old wise man is honest and direct………
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/Swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5408106
Former President Carter questions Iraq vote
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nobel Peace Prize winner and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter
has expressed strong misgivings about Iraqi elections next month and said there was not enough
security in the country for a free and safe vote.
Carter, whose nonpartisan Carter Centre has monitored more than 50 elections around the world,
told Reuters on Wednesday he would not be involved in observing the January 30 vote and was not
optimistic about the situation in Iraq.
“I think the whole Iraqi situation has been a debacle, a very costly one. I don’t see how all the
rudimentary requirements for a free and safe election can be achieved in another month. How can
anyone campaign? How can anyone go and vote without fear?,” he said in an interview.
"They might contrive some substitute for an orthodox election by having the vote take place over
several weeks or in certain little spots scattered about Iraq and not in the troubled areas.
"But there is not enough security there in my opinion to have a legitimate election. I hope I am
wrong and that they have some success," he added.
A number of Iraqi secular and Sunni groups have called for the election to be postponed by up to
six months because of violence in the Sunni north and west.
But Iraq’s interim government, U.S. President George W. Bush and the United Nations have all
reaffirmed that the poll should go ahead as scheduled.
The Carter Centre was founded in 1982 to promote democracy and human rights and has
mediated in conflicts in Africa, North Korea and Bosnia