The Washington Post finds evidence of political progress in Iraq.
According to the Post in the run-up to the next week's Parliamentary elections "candidates and political parties of all stripes are embracing politics, Iraqi style, as never before and showing increasing sophistication about the electoral process."
As evidence of the evolution, the article cites posters and radio and television ads, including negative ads:
Evidence of political evolution is plastered all over Baghdad's normally drab concrete blast walls and hung on lampposts at nearly every major intersection: large, colorful, graphically appealing posters conveying a wide variety of punchy messages.
Television and radio airwaves are replete with slick advertisements costing anywhere from $1,250 per minute on al-Sumariya, a Lebanon-based satellite station focused on Iraq, to $5,000 per minute on al-Arabiya, a network based in the United Arab Emirates that is popular across the Arab world.
[. . .]
Even the arrival of American-style negative campaigning is evidence of a growing political sophistication, the election trainers said.
The Iraqi's are even using interactive internet sites and cell phone text-messaging technology.
The Post quotes Canadian election specialists in Iraq about the transformation:
It is like night and day from 10 months ago in terms of level of participation and political awareness.
The situation is different than Iraq's January elections when candidates didn't really campaign, fearing they would be kidnapped or assassinated:
But it is much easier this time. Before, we were running while we were hiding. We don't have to hide anymore.
Amazing, just over two yours ago Iraqi's couldn't say anything Saddam didn't want to hear. Now they campaign freely to choose their own law makers. Such progress is phenomenal. It is very encouraging to see such reports in the main stream media. Especially when it is so different to the doom and gloom espoused by the Dean - Pelosi - Reid - Murtha Defeaticrats.
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