The Iraqi election appears not to have have been the bloodbath threatened by al Qaeda. Current estimates suggest that as many as 8 million people — 60 percent of the registered voters — defied the gangs of anti-election terrorists.
The election was but a sham of democracy, as everywhere under capitalism, but threatening people’s lives to prevent them from voting for capitalism is more anti-worker than the capitalist lackeys who will be elected. If people choose to vote for capitalism, so be it. Preventing people from voting is an affront to freedom — even the supposed freedom under capitalism. Certainly it is those who oppose real freedom who oppose elections.
This election will not solve the problems of the Iraqi working class, but 8 million votes tells those who oppose even the rudiments of democracy, that they will lose, eventually. This election will embolden people. It is a first step to freedom.
al Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his gang of murderers will lose. All the other gangs of murderers will lose. The only uncertainty is the number human beings they will murder before they stop.