Congratulations, Iraq

Shhh. Hear that? That would be the sound of Iraqi men and women putting their votes in a ballot box. Alas, because it is going well, no one wants to talk about it.

Today was Iraq's nationwide election for provincial councils. 14,000 people are running for office, including roughly 4000 women. The polls were kept open an extra hour because of turnout.

What I admire about the Iraqis is that they've always shown off their purple fingers, even a few years ago when times were bad. The ink takes days to wash off. That's bravery, to literally paint yourself as someone seeking democracy in a land where people could kill you for it.

The BBC report tries desperately to find something, anything, to show that things are exploding. Instead, they come up with a shooting where one man may have been killed or two injured (and they don't mention the motive behind the shooting; could have been hold-up for all we know), and a few mortar rounds going off in Tikrit. Other than that, one of the correspondents says that the polling stations have a "holiday atmosphere."

This bit caught my eye:

The head of the Iraqi electoral commission in Anbar province - a centre of the Sunni resistance to the US occupation - said he was expecting a 60% turnout.

Fewer than 2% voted in the 2005 election, with the result that Shia and Kurdish parties took control of parliament.

Some Sunnis, like Khaled al-Azemi, said the boycott last time had been a mistake.

"We lost a lot because we didn't vote and we saw the result - sectarian violence" he told the BBC.

"That's why we want to vote now to avoid the mistakes of the past."

That is huge. Huge: "We lost a lot because we didn't vote."

As you can see in this clip, Iraqis have taken to democracy so much that they've managed to make the election ballots too complicated for a Florida voter:



Photos: Getty