Voting in Baghdad was linked with receipt of food rations, several voters said after the Sunday poll.
Money quote:
Many Iraqis had expressed fears before the election that their monthly food rations would be cut if they did not vote. They said they had to sign voter registration forms in order to pick up their food supplies. Their experiences on the day of polling have underscored many of their concerns about questionable methods used by the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government to increase voter turnout.Though, of course, I agree with Miriam, that Arabs are "interested in democracy," I'm not ready to call the election a triumph just yet. If the Iraqi government artificially inflated the turn-out and bullied people into voting by threatening their food rations, we still have a few obstacles yet to surmount.
ODDITY: The same peculiar sort of right-winger who objected to Oslo, claiming that Arabs don't want peace and can't govern themselves, now crows about the Iraqi election. Very strange. Don't they realize that if democracy flourishes in Iraq (voting abnormalities aside) it only proves true what the left has always said? What happened to the "incurable culture of Arab violence?"
Hmmm?