Iraqi elections

[ciphergoth]

This goes through my head every time I read a headline about the eight million Iraqis who just voted, or the thousands in this country who cast a proxy vote.

Comments

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

58% turnout - well it's higher than the US, even last time, but compared to South Africa in 1994 (87%) it's telling. I hope it has some effect, and the main effect I hope it has is to encourage the US to get the hell out...

[akicif.livejournal.com]

One can hope. But 8M isn't that big a chunk of the voting-age population.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

The guardian says:
Iraqi election officials initially put turnout at 72% but later admitted it was a crude estimate and said perhaps 8 million out of Iraq's 14 million eligible voters had taken part, a turnout closer to 57%.

I wonder what makes you an 'eligible voter'...

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Age, I think. Given that a good deal of the Sunni population was boycotting the election 57% translates into a pretty high percentage of the non Sunni population.

Getting the Sunni involved is going to be interesting, to say the least. Even not being part of the parliament they can influence the constitution by getting 2/3 of their population to vote to reject it (according to NPR just now). In the long run that would probably be a relatively good thing, and ensure that the minority don't get shafted.


(I shouldn't be on LJ at all today so if you reply I won't see it til evening...)

[narnee.livejournal.com]

Given that a good deal of the Sunni population was boycotting the election 57% translates into a pretty high percentage of the non Sunni population.

I haven't heard or seen figures for the Kurds or the Sunnis yet, but I did hear on BBC World Service last night that the turnout in most Shia areas met or exceeded 92%.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

More up to date information:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/iz.html#People

When I add up these figures, I get 15136552 people age 15 and above. So a voting population of 14M sounds about right. 8M voters is about 57% of that.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

That's not bad at all, then - I thought I'd heard on the radio this morning that the 8M were 57% of registered voters, and that registrations had not been particularly high. I guess this could have been talking about particular areas. Or maybe I wasn't completely awake and conflated two different news stories.

vote for oil or else

[ablueskyboy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree, but it would have been much better if the US simply switched to alternate energy than oil "reserves" and closed business.

All this feudal fighting is frightenly pointless, feels like I'm in pre-WW2.

Re: vote for oil or else

[gnomatron.livejournal.com]

hmm, I don't know why the oil companies aren't trying to push through alternative energy sources... they know the oil reserves are finite, and they surely want to have a fall-back when they run out? They're in by far the best position to control the alternative energy market when it finally kicks off properly.

I recall an amusing incident where greenpeace broke into the BP building in Aberdeen and placed solar panels on the roof as an act of protest. Thing is, it turned out that BP had been the ones who manufactured the panels in the first place...

Re: vote for oil or else

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

They have the technology, but no-one will buy while oil is still affordable. If oil really does run low (and given that new reserves keep being found in central Asia, so there's probably enough for 100 years), people will start buying the solar panels at a rate which will enable economies of scale.

In the meantime, many local councils give grants for people wanting to install solar panels or more efficient heating or insulation...

Re: vote for oil or else

[cillygirl.livejournal.com]

thing is, they want to make money -now-, not in 100 years time... their interest lies in keeping us using oil for as long as possible, squeeze the last scrap from the ground (and where will we put all that carbon?) because they have a systematic and business monopoly at present whereas they can't guarantee that in the future.

also, alternative energy is inherently distributed in source, i.e. on your roof, so they can't control it so well, spinning the system (they bought a president!) to get absolute maximum return.