An Iraqi policeman shows off his ink-stained finger after Iraq's election last week. Photo credit: Pfc. Erik Anderson, 3-3 HBCT

With the results from the 7 March parliamentary election in Iraq slow in coming, allegations of fraud and shadowy conspiracy theories are quickly gaining momentum, spurring fears that what was a fair election may be rapidly devolving into an unfair accounting. At the moment, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, head of a Shiite coalition, is pulling ahead; but Sunni Iraqis are watching with apprehension to see, as The Washington Post reported, whether they have a place in the new government. Other reports indicate that with Maliki’s very narrow lead, he will likely be forced to negotiate a coalition with representatives of Iraq’s three main constituencies, the Sunis, the Shia, and the Kurds.

The Times, in a leading editorial today, implied that the frustration and unrest over the election are just the birthing pains of a real, live democracy. “While there is disquiet over the process, this stems not from hostility, but from a desire that Iraq should have a proper, grown-up political system, which behaves as a democracy ought. Second, regardless of how the popular vote goes, Iraq will have a government and an opposition, and an enhanced expectation that this is how politics ought to be,” the paper contended.

This had been largely the position of the Western media reporting and editorializing on the elections, especially in the days immediately following the elections: Most lauded the Iraqi people for turning out in such numbers – 60 percent of the voting population – despite the series of blasts and bombs that destroyed several polling stations.

But the Iraqi election shouldn’t be quite the feather in the cap of those who endorsed the controversial Iraq Invasion that it’s becoming, wrote Henry Porter in the Sunday Guardian. “Calculating the ratio of suffering to democratic outcome should not be left to remote observers such as David Aaronovitch of the Times who argues that the election is ‘a bloody miracle’ and so by implication the ultimate vindication of his support of the war,” Porter wrote. History, he wrote, will ultimately not forgive or vindicate “warmongers” who pushed for an unnecessary war.