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Source: http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/32135.htm
Getting Iraq's Election Right
(New York Post) Amir Taheri - Iraq's interim government has decided to hold the country's first-ever free elections on Jan. 30. According to Abdul-Hussein al-Hindawi, a respected jurist who heads Iraq's independent election commission, 126 parties have registered to take part in the elections from the widest spectrum of ideologies and programs, including more than a dozen Islamist groups, and as many communist ones. Foreign powers are attempting to influence the elections. Iran is channeling vast sums of money to half a dozen parties campaigning on sectarian Islamist platforms. In addition, the Iranian-sponsored Hizballah is sending militants to Iraq to campaign for Khomeinist candidates. Syria is promoting a couple of crypto-Ba'athist groups, while Turkey is investing in an openly ethnicist Turkoman outfit. Several oil-rich Gulf states are writing fat checks for a few Sunni fundamentalist groups.