Archives » Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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Larry Kaplow
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Jan 27, 2009 02:32 PM
Ahmed Chalabi just sent me a text message. "Elect slate 274 now. The
future is in your hands, Dr. Ahmed Chalabi, Iraqi National Congress,
paid advertisement," stated the little script across my phone screen.
It came just a few minutes after another Arabic exhortation: "Elect
302, the slate of Prime Minister Maliki, he who achieved security and
returned national sovereignty. Paid Advertisement."
With provincial elections on Saturday, the capital's blast walls, cell
phones and televisions are flush with propaganda for the 2,455
candidates and hundreds of numbered slates running for the province's
57-seat council--the body that will choose a governor and make local
laws.
Just driving around town gives a taste of the campaign rhetoric. It's
often not too different from the platitudes of American politics except
that it's more wordy. "In order to achieve justice, equality and equal
opportunity, vote for Rafidein, 504." "For the construction of a new
Iraq," says posters for Abbas al-Naeimi, a television anchorman
stepping into politics.
There are unspoken subtexts in some. The posters for the slate headed
by the mayor of Baghdad shows an apparently nondescript highway
overpass and some unremarkable street scenes. But observant voters
would notice them as examples of infrastructure rebuilt after terrorist
bombings. On television, Ayad Allawi's coalition shows video of him
speaking to the United Nations, a reminder that he was prime minister
in 2004.
Though religious parties are said to be on the defensive, apparently
the list backed by the powerful Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq thinks
Shiite references are a plus. "Peace on you, heroine of Karbala," says
one of their posters, referring to the seventh century Zeinab, sister
of the revered Hussein. Their coalition is called, "The Martyrs of the
Altar and Independent Forces." The "martyrs of the altar" are Imam Ali,
killed while praying in 661 and cleric Mohammed Bakr Hakim, killed by a
bomber after prayers in 2003.
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