A revolving door of elections that leads nowhere

On November 11, the same fake democratic offer will be presented again as a solution to the dilemma of Iraq, which has been hijacked for 22 years. Iraqis will vote again. But they are not choosing-;- rather, a sectarian class and state thieves from the new oligarchy are being recycled.
Worn-out faces, tattered slogans and promises that are not even good enough to sell junk.
Elections? A revolving door. State thieves enter, sectarian oligarchs exit, then they return through the same door, with new names and maps of a homeland stripped of dignity.
Twenty-two years of failure and corruption have changed nothing in the equation of governance. Rather, they have cemented it.
The political process was built on an unpatriotic idea: dividing Iraqis against themselves. Sects and ethnic groups, tribes and militias. Everything except Iraq. The homeland? While Iraqi nationalism means, quite simply, that Iraq cannot be divided except by itself.
Iraq, the homeland, has become a slogan raised when war, displacement and identity-based killings are desired, and dropped when justice is demanded. It is absent from every speech and present at every funeral.
The upcoming elections are not the solution. They are being run by the same parties that aborted the October revolution and silenced its cry when the revolutionaries demanded a homeland, not a sect.
October was an attempt to -restore- the real Iraq. But the fake Iraq continued, with its parties, its militias, its political money and its weapons that never miss the chests of young people.
In these elections, not only are votes bought, but silence is also bought.
The Associated Press described it as “the most exploited since 2003 in terms of political money and state resources.”
Allegations of corruption and vote buying are no longer allegations, but daily occurrences.
An election campaign official, who declined to be named, told the agency that “almost all candidates, including the major blocs, are distributing money and buying voter cards,” with the price of a card reaching 300,000 Iraqi dinars,´-or--$-200.
Democracy? It has turned into an auction. Whoever pays the most gets into parliament. Whoever shouts the loudest gets silenced.
The Western press has not been oblivious. In a report by The Guardian, the Iraqi elections were described as a “sham process run from behind the scenes,” while Foreign Policy said that “the Iraqi political class has succeeded in turning democracy into a tool for reproducing its power.” This is not an analysis, but a death certificate for a democracy that was never born in Iraq.
Iraqis today do not trust the ballot box because they know that it does not represent their homeland, but rather a recycling of tragedy.
They know that the candidates are nothing more than sectarian waste and that the parties do not want a homeland for them, but rather a sphere of influence.
In Iraq, patriotism is not measured by belonging, but by loyalty.
Loyalty to the sect, the clan, the militia, the party, the guardian jurist.
As for Iraq? It is just a name used in official statements, news bulletins and Friday sermons.
The upcoming elections will change nothing. Because they are not being run from within Iraq, but from outside it. From closed rooms, from regional calculations and from interests that see Iraq as nothing more than a battleground.
The solution? It lies not in the ballot box, but in reaching a zero-sum equation in the political process. When Iraqis put their Iraqi identity above all other considerations. I want them to know themselves, after the thieves of the state took over the Green Zone.
The solution lies in when sect is not identity, clan is not homeland, and militia is not state.
Tishreen tried that. But it was suppressed. Because it threatened the fake Iraq and demanded the real Iraq.
That Iraq is not run from Tehran, nor divided in party rooms, nor sold in markets of loyalty.
In every election, it is said that the people choose. But the truth is that the people are chosen for them. The candidate, the discourse, the result and even the turnout are chosen for them.
There are exorbitant costs to the success of the political process in Iraq, and none of the participants wants to pay them, because none of the politicians in the Green Zone wants to stop burning billions of Iraq’s money in corruption. As soon as the existing equation is disrupted, corrupt politicians versus an aggrieved people, the pressure pent up in the Green Zone will explode.
This means that the ‘political dust’ bought by every international official who has visited Iraq in recent weeks does not mean that Iraq’s market is thriving with democracy! This is a recipe for falsification drawn up by George W Bush and Tony Blair, which the world now avoids when Iraq is presented as an historical lesson.
Iraq does not need elections, but vigilance. It needs a moment of collective awareness that says: Enough. Enough sectarianism, enough corruption, enough recycling of faces.
Can Iraq be reborn? Perhaps. But not through this revolving door that will be set in motion again on November 11.

Rate the article
Bad	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Very good
Result : 100%							Participated in the vote : 1