one last joint

but it's never the last. mum's visiting. i've been tentatively packing my stuff because i'm supposed to get a job outside of baghdad some time in the coming weeks. it seems i'll be around for the elections. this time around, i should make my mind up ahead of time. so why not go over this now.


1. maliki and the state of law coalition. my dad's cousin is in this party and i don't like him. when people in shamiya ask me for a favour from him i tell them that when i was living alone as a teenager in lebanon he was my only relative in the country and he never even called to ask how i was doing. as far as achievements go, even though they've brought upon a relative improvement to the security situation, which i think they bear some responsibility of causing in the first place, there's not much else to show for.


2. sciiri (Iraqi National Movement). their leader's dead. what i've heard and from more than one source is that al-hakim's offices have not been allowing people to sell their properties in karada and offering to buy them at a discounted price. and where the hell are they getting their money? that's something that pisses me off about iraqis, they don't seem to ask where the money comes from, they do sometimes wonder where some of it went however. my personal opinion is that the state shouldn't give any money to the clerics and that the clerics should be able to support themselves on donations or in exchange for services such as readings.


3. the kurdish parties (Kurdistani List). i honestly do like these guys. talabani looks like a barrel of love doesn't he? sure they seem to operate like mafia families trying to go legal up there in kurdistan. a little shady here and there, but on the whole, i believe they've succeeded in making the people of kurdistan pround and happy. but i'm not going to vote for them even though that their behaviour has a lot of positive energy they don't really do anything for the people south of their border. they just keep to themselves.


4. sunni parties(Iraqi Accord Front and Iraqi Unity). they used to have a funny shaky guy with a cool hat. i haven't really had any interaction with them or any of their influence. i do however get the impression that they've kept things running smoother and operate a lot more competently in their areas than the others have with the exception of the kurds. they're pissed off all the time, and in all fairness i think they've got the right to be pissed off and they deserve to be listened to. the problem with them is that they've got themselves so involved in getting angry that they seem to have lost any kind of vision for the country.


there are more parties aren't there... trying to remember them...


5. allawi's (Iraqi National Movement). they have nice campaign billboards with nice smiles that brighten up your day. that party is a big bunch of really nice people and allawi's was dead cool when he went out there into the street right where a bunch of car bombs had just gone off to see things for himself when he was acting prime-minister or something. but they seem to have no grassroots support. their lack of support i believe is their distance to the people, they don't want to get their dirty. i don't think any of them are really up to the job. a lot of them have been living in abroad in england or wherever for a very long time and i think they've lost touch with today's iraq and its people.


oh another came to mind a moment ago...shouldn't there be a bbc list...


6. the commies. these guys are always good for a laugh. a bunch of geezers that pretend that communism doesn't include atheism. these guys have good hearts, in denial that communism failed and that no one's going to buy it anymore. they're the least corrupt of them all, it would be hard to imagine these guys stealing money from the state or doing anything dodgy. but on the other hand, they're so out-dated, all of their policies would fail and the country would starve itself to death. these old guys are just hanging around, keeping themselves busy in their retirement who of course have pockets of support everywhere among all the other over aged pensioners.


this is taking forever! there's a bunch of other guys but i'm not sure... wow! i found a wikipedia article! it's got the names of the parties that i'll put in brackets... oh i finished! i thought there were more. there was no mention of the commies in the article. i think the best thing to do is to just vote for a minority's party.


Post continued five days later...




I spoke to a Christian classmate to ask him who he was voting for so that I vote with him, but he was encouraging at all telling me to pick the hottest one, who according to the posters is a Fairuz Hatim. But after a google image search it turns out she's very fat. He told me to give him word if I saw anyone else that's cute. I also tried to dig out some info on the Christian parties and the candidates don't seem to be in any way spectacular. They get provisional seats anyway.


Another friend recommended the Ahrar party, a party led by a rather young guy that was previously with the Allawi list. My friend tells me that even though he's got a cleric's turban, the guy's very keen to make the most of help from abroad in the form of foreign advisors as well as foreign companies.


The party didn't get mentioned in the Wikipedia article I had read, so that qualifies them for that underdog quality and today I saw a poster for one member who is third on the list. Her name's Qortaba, she's got a degree in political science from Germany and looks cute enough.


And the post is continued on the day of the vote...


Sorry Qortaba, I'm not voting for someone that doesn't return a single Google result other than the one on her party's website especially if she's supposed to have studied in Germany because that's plain dodgy. Neither do I want to get a puzzled look when I tell people who I voted for. I'm succumbing to peer pressure and choose to vote for Allawi's list.


A couple days later...


I voted for Allawi :) No regrets so far. Did feel bad for not voting for the Ahrar party, I hope they do well and do better next time around. There's something that does get on my nerves. There are loads of people that didn't vote and if they didn't complain or care about the past four years about the country then that's fine but those that did, those that went on complaining about the state of things, they tick me off.


The way I see it, most of the people that didn't vote (about 40% of the electorate maybe) are those that are the most unhappy with the way things are whilst the guys that are voting for the punks that are pissing the unhappy abstainers as well me off are having fun knowing they're going to win.