Election campaigning - Iraqi style

Juan Cole brings us a rather puzzling way of approaching campaigns in Iraq.

KarbalaNews.net reports that Adnan Pachachi, head of the Independent Democratic Bloc, called again on Thursday for a postponement of the January 30 elections. He, Ghazi al-Yawar and Nasir Chadirchi are among the few Sunni Arab politicians with name recognition still in the race.

Candidate name recognition doesn't appear very important, however. For security reasons, the actual names of most candidates on the 78 party or multiparty lists have so far not been released. This odd situation, in which the candidates are not known amonth before the election, attests to how dire the political and security situation in Iraq really is.

This is democracy on the march?