dgmodel Posted October 16 Report Share Posted October 16 Suspense ends: Saddam wins Iraqi presidential referendum, officials sayCanadian Press Wednesday, October 16, 2002 BAGHDAD (AP) - Saddam Hussein won another seven-year term as Iraq's president in a referendum in which he was the sole candidate, taking 100 per cent of the vote, the Iraqi leader's righthand man announced Wednesday. All 11,445,638 of the eligible voters cast ballots, said Izzat Ibrahim, vice-chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council that is Iraq's key decision-making body. "This is a unique manifestation of democracy which is superior to all other forms of democracies even in these countries which are besieging Iraq and trying to suffocate it," Ibrahim said at a news conference in Baghdad, apparently referring to the United States The White House had dismissed the one-man race in advance. To get a vote total at all - let alone a 100 per cent "yes" vote - Iraqi officials would have had to gather and count millions of paper ballots, some from remote areas far from Baghdad. "Obviously, it's not a very serious day, not a very serious vote and nobody places any credibility on it," press secretary Ari Fleischer said in Washington on Tuesday. Parliament members were expected to go to Saddam sometime Wednesday to administer the oath of office for the new term. Saddam has not appeared in public since December 2000. Iraqis in Baghdad could be heard firing in the air in celebration after Ibrahim's announcement of the results in Parliament. The government had declared the day a national holiday even before the results were announced. Clusters of men took to the streets, dancing, at the news. "My feeling is of happiness. This referendum and the 100 per cent shows that all Iraqis are ready to defend their country and leader," said Nabir Khaled Yusef, a van driver. Mahmoud Amin, a retired civil servant, echoed the idea. "This is a great day to celebrate," he said. "We are not surprised with the 100 per cent vote for the president because all Iraqis are steadfast to their president, who has been known to them for 30 years." On Tuesday, it was apparent that the vote was different from what most people know in democratic societies. Some voters stuffed bunches of ballots into boxes, saying they represented the votes of their entire families. Ibrahim defended the 100 per cent figure when asked by reporters whether such a percentage wasn't absurd. "Someone who does not know the Iraqi people, he will not believe this percentage, but it is real, whether it looks that way to someone or not," he said. "We don't have opposition in Iraq. They are situated in northern Iraq. Inside Iraq, there is no opposition. A poll among Kurds in northern Iraq - who are not under Saddam's control - bore out Ibrahim's statement on the opposition. The poll conducted by the Iraqi Institute for Democracy showed 94.5 per cent of Iraqi Kurds questioned said they would not vote for Saddam. The institute, which is based in the northern Kurdish enclave and calls itself a nonprofit group promoting democracy, said about 3,000 Kurds were questioned Tuesday as Iraqis went to the polls in the referendum. The poll was published Wednesday by the London-based Al Hayat daily, which reported only 64 Kurds said they would vote for Saddam while 129 said they were undecided. In the last referendum in 1995, Saddam got 99.96 per cent of the vote - according to the official Iraqi results - and officials had said they expected him to top that figure. "This is a day of pride, honour and dignity as Iraqis express their free will to say 'yes' to the pinnacle of their glory and loftiness," Ibrahim said, referring to Saddam. The vote was widely advertised not only as backing for Saddam but as a rebuke to the United States, which has been pressing in the UN Security Council for a resolution that would allow a war to topple Saddam. Ibrahim referred to the United States as the "forces of injustice and illusion," and called Iraq the land of "civilization and creativity." Saddam, 65, became president in 1979 in a well-orchestrated transfer of power within his Baath Party. Iraq has been under UN Security Council sanctions since invading Kuwait in 1990. UN resolutions require the country to destroy all its weapons of mass destruction, but it is widely believed to retain chemical and biological weapons, and the United States has accused it of trying to develop nuclear weapons. The United States wants a new Security Council resolution that would give UN weapons inspectors wide powers to uncover Iraq's arms and to trigger a war on Iraq if it resists full inspections. France has led a campaign in the Security Council to drop from the resolution the idea of an automatic trigger for war. http://www.canada.com/news/story.asp?id=%7B27BC26C1-9583-4068-9061-D04AA754931E%7D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnice35 Posted October 16 Report Share Posted October 16 The poll conducted by the Iraqi Institute for Democracy showed 94.5 per cent of Iraqi Kurds questioned said they would not vote for Saddam. I wonder if their votes were counted..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgmodel Posted October 16 Author Report Share Posted October 16 lol cnbc reported that saddam recieved a 100% vote... lol... aint that some shit? talk about manipulation, we thought our election was shady... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t0nythelover Posted October 16 Report Share Posted October 16 i vote for dgmodel...please dont kill me... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnice35 Posted October 16 Report Share Posted October 16 Originally posted by dgmodel lol cnbc reported that saddam recieved a 100% vote... lol... aint that some shit? talk about manipulation, we thought our election was shady... I think we should send some of our Florida voting poll workers to aid them with their elections. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dgmodel Posted October 16 Author Report Share Posted October 16 Originally posted by t0nythelover i vote for dgmodel...please dont kill me... lol... dgmodel for mod... vote for dg!!! lol... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
normalnoises Posted October 18 Report Share Posted October 18 "I wonder if their votes were counted....."Our votes didn't count in the 2000 elections and we ended up with an idiot who stole the election. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xpander Posted October 18 Report Share Posted October 18 As bad as some of the political PR here in the states are...woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunk Posted October 18 Report Share Posted October 18 Originally posted by normalnoises "I wonder if their votes were counted....."Our votes didn't count in the 2000 elections and we ended up with an idiot who stole the election. Someone bitter? You seem to forget that post election recounts by the liberal media show Bush as the winner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dnice35 Posted October 18 Report Share Posted October 18 Originally posted by normalnoises "I wonder if their votes were counted....."Our votes didn't count in the 2000 elections and we ended up with an idiot who stole the election. playa hating......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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