Lipstick On A Pig

The Strib gets behind the Palestinian election:

Hope walks on tiptoes in the Middle East, but it took a giant step on Sunday when Palestinians went to the polls and elected a new president, Mahmoud Abbas. Polling was fair and orderly, voters turned out in large numbers, the winner is a respected leader with international stature, and there was essentially no disruption by militant Islamist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Which would make sense, since he is in effect their representative, but I digress.

Naturally, the Strib would seem to be whitewashing the situation:

Palestinian voters turned out at the polls in unexpectedly low numbers in many parts of the West Bank and encountered confusion at East Jerusalem polling stations in today’s elections to name the first successor to long-time leader Yasser Arafat, according to international monitors, Palestinian officials and visits by The Washington Post.

“It’s as if two different elections are going on,” said Leslie Campbell, Middle East director of the U.S.-government-funded National Democratic Institute, one of dozens of international election monitoring groups. “Jerusalem has been a big problem. Everywhere else, preliminary reports are that things are going very well.”

Even though Palestinians encountered few problems at Israeli checkpoints in the West Bank, according to monitors and election officials, turnout in the presidential election ranged from extremely light to moderate in towns and villages.

At the Islamic Secondary School for Boys in this northern West Bank city of Nablus, 190 of 1,395 registered voters — about 14 percent of those eligible— had cast their ballots by midafternoon.

Never mind. The Strib is following the script; the Palestinian elections are democracy in action, while this month's Iraqi elections (just watch their coverage, which will faithfully parrot orthodox anti-Bush spin) will be a sham.

Posted by Mitch at January 11, 2005 06:57 AM | TrackBack