Democracy, Iraqi-Style

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Democracy, Iraqi-Style

We have a lot to learn from the Iraqis about democracy.

Now that time and empty hands have finally exposed the Bush administration's argument for invading Iraq to be a sham - there were no WMDs, just as weapons inspectors had told us before the war - all the administration is left with is its fallback position: We invaded to bring democracy to Iraq.

That's their story and they're sticking to it.

But even though Iraq's democracy is still barely more than a wink in Dick Cheney's eye, the Iraqis are already showing us a thing or two about how democracy ought to work. For example, Washington recently suggested that if Sunnis win too few seats in the 275-member Iraqi legislature, the Iraqis should simply adjust the outcome of the election and award the Sunnis more seats than they actually won. But Farid Ayar, spokesman for the Iraqi Election Commission and apparently a bit of a wild-eyed idealist, was less than enthusiastic about the advice:

"Who wins, wins. That is the way it is. That is the way it will be in the election."

Who wins, wins? What a charmingly quaint idea. Would the election commissioners in Ohio and Florida please take note.

Vote for Me

While outright election fraud probably reminds Iraqis of the bad old days of Saddam Hussein and his claims of winning 100% of the vote, Iraqis have come up with an election innovation that even the most jaded U.S. election official would be proud to call his own - the secret ballot.

I don't mean the kind of secret ballot where no one but you knows who you voted for. In Iraq's January 30th elections, the ballot may be so secret that, in many cases, the voter won't even know who he voted for.

Out of fear for their personal safety, many candidates are campaigning in secret, meeting with small groups of voters privately, but not announcing their names to the general population. It gets worse. Some sources, such as Time magazine and the Christian Science Monitor, are reporting that the names of these candidates might not even appear on ballots. Voters will vote for a party, not a person. And in many cases, the list of a party's candidates will not be made public before or during the election. Only after the election will voters find out who they sent to the new legislature to represent them.

People who love surprises will surely love this system - it will be like election day and Christmas day rolled into one. Unless they learn that they just voted for Achmed E. Newman.

What can we learn from Iraq's secret ballot system? First, we have to realize that our own system is closer to Iraq's than we might think. Americans, too, often vote for the party and not the person. But here again, Iraq can teach us something about democracy.

On January 30th, Iraqi voters will have dozens of parties and party coalitions to choose from. We have two. Sure, other parties manage to get on our ballots, but our opinionmakers do their best to discourage that sort of thing. Vote for a third-party candidate, we are told again and again, and you are just wasting your vote. As if voting for the winner entitles you to a free SUV.

But I'm not so delusional to believe that America will ever have a true multi-party system. There is too much money invested in the current system to change it. In any given race we have two choices - D and R. Many Americans simply vote for one letter or the other and be done with it. Of those who do look beyond mere party affiliation, many claim not to like either candidate, and are therefore forced to vote for "the lesser of two evils."

Amazingly, that is how America's leaders are selected. Is it any wonder that, not too long into a president's term, you hear so many Americans utter the anguished lament, "How the hell did we elect this bozo"?

Let's spare Americans this painful self-reflection. Since we certainly aren't about to change the way we elect our leaders, we should consider adopting Iraq's innovative secret ballot. If we don't know who we are voting for, we never again have to anguish over putting yet another bozo into high office. "Not our fault. We didn't know." Ignorance is indeed bliss.

We should be grateful to the Iraqis for teaching their benefactors these lessons in democracy. In fact, I propose that we demonstrate our gratitude in some meaningful way, such as giving the population another hour or two a day of electricity.

We also should be grateful to President Bush, who continues to have no regrets about invading Iraq even though no WMDs have been found. I wonder how many millions of Americans who voted for President Bush last year would today enthusiastically support an Iraqi-style secret ballot for America. What anguish they must be feeling over the President's "What, Me Worry" attitude on Iraq, where this President has caused so much death, misery, and destruction, for no good reason.

My guess is that many of those Bush voters would love to be able to shrug their shoulders and say, "Not our fault. We didn't know."