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« May 2008 | Main | July 2008 » June 30, 2008Today's Web Grab
When prison works...
I do hope you didn't miss this great joke from a Times thumbnail portrait of Nelson Mandela:
The 10 most corrupt electionsRobert Mugabe's "remarkable victory" (© John Simpson) has set a new standard in the conduct of election campaigns. But he is not, of course, alone. Here is Comment Central's top ten list of rigged elections of the post war era. Please add your own suggestions and then, using the irony and wit for which this blog is renowned, we will hold an internet vote to determine the most rigged election of the modern era. Here's our list:
In 2002, Hussein's officials proclaimed that the president had won every single one of 11,445,638 votes in a referendum on his rule. In the previous election, he had won some 99.96% of the vote. Polling stations dispensed with curtained booths. Voters were grateful for this innovation - no-one wanted to be suspected of voting 'no.' 2) Kenya election The victory of President Mwai Kibaki in the 2007 Kenyan elections came as a surprise given that he had fallen behind opponent Raila Odinga in every poll. Accusations of invented results, excluded election observers and systematic fraud were made. Violence escalated until rioting was quelled by a power-sharing agreement in February 2008 3) Islamists in Algeria In December 1991 elections were held in Algeria. The Islamic Salvation Front won the first round with a large majority but the army refused to acknowledge a religious political party. In 1992 the government annulled the election results. This triggered the Algerian Civil War and more than 160,000 deaths over the next decade.
4) The Orange Revolution When Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych declared victory in an election run-off in November 2004, accusations of vote rigging broke out. It then emerged that opponent Viktor Yushchenko had been poisoned with dioxin, permanently disfiguring his appearance. His orange-clad supporters held mass protests and Yushchenko won the second contest with 52% of the vote. He was sworn in in January 2005. UPDATE: In response to comments, the Orange Revolution was obviously the response to a corrupt election, not corrupt itself. 5) Milosevic's final hurrah: Slobodan Milosevic thought he was being clever when he moved to a two round system for Presidential elections in 2000. He systematically stuffed ballots and then refused to accept that he had suffered a first round defeat. The resulting demonstrations caused arrests that quickly snowballed. It wasn't long before President Milosevic had changed his name to ex-President Milosevic. 6) The Polish People's Referendum After the war the Polish State Council organised a referendum designed to help solidify communist control of the country. Overwhelming yes votes were organised to confirm various aspects of communist policy. The police organised ballot stuffing, while military votes were cast under command. Documents later published showed that the real result was overwhelming defeat for all the communist proposals. About 10,000 Soviet opponents were killed in the two or three years after the war.
President Mubarak won this election in 2005 with 88.6% of the vote. It was the first ever election with mutiple parties but the Muslim Brotherhood were barred from taking part. Other irregularities included a failure to use indelible ink on voters hands (so that they could cast their ballots repeatedly) and intimidation at the polling stations. Protests were ignored. 8) Supreme Soviet Elections The Soviet era held a sucession of corrupt elections where single candidates stood for a rubber-stamp government. It was not until 1989 that Russians were able to vote for anyone other than the official 9) Burma Following rule by the military for three decades, Burma held free elections in May 1990. Aung San Suu Kyi won a landslide victory with 392 out of 489 seats. But the army-led government refused to acknowledge the victory, annulling the results and placing Suu Kyi under house arrest. She has remained there on and off ever since. 10) Nigeria The April 2007 elections were denounced for widespread intimidation, violence and fraud. Umaru Yar'Adua supposedly took 70% of the vote amid claims that only 30% of the ballot papers had been distributed. In one polling stations, more than 2000 votes were registered despite the fact that there were only 500 voters. Attempts to petition the courts and invalidate the election failed. Magazine Rack - Issue 250
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Who started the 'Obama is a Muslim' smear?
One of the prominent features of this Presidential election camapign will be the privatised War Room. In 1992 the Clinton campaign determined that Michael Dukakis had let too many unreasonable attacks go unanswered. So they established a rapid response unit in their War Room designed to rebut allegation within a single news cycle. During the last election bloggers joined in the fun. Using the collective wisdom available to them through collaboration on the internet, they brought down Dan Rather by shredding his report on George Bush's army service. During this election I expect an explosion of this sort of activity. An early example is the work bring done to trace the source of the so-called smear about Obama's religion. I call it a so-called smear not because I am suggesting for one second that Obama is a Muslim but because, if you think about it, it is odd to call suggesting someone is a Muslim a "smear", isn't it? Well, Matthew Mosk in the Washington Post makes clear why the smear label is well merited. From the beginning the allegation was less that Obama was some sort of Islamist than that he was a liar. The idea, the smear, was that he was attempting to conceal his religious background. It is rather similar to the reason why Holocaust denial is anti-semitic. The numbers who died are a matter for historical research, the suggestion that the Jews are engaged in a conspiracy to cover up the truth is a smear. Mosk attributes the uncovering of the truth about the Obama smear to political theorist Damielle Allen and a Google search she conducted using phrases from an attack email on Obama's religion:
The same conclusion has been reached by Chris Hayes in The Nation. Ben Smith says Hayes got there first. Whatever. But it looks like they've got their man. Monday's comment from the papers in...
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June 27, 2008Today's Web Grab
What about Chris Rennard?
What about Chris Rennard? Could this be the end of an era? George Bush prepares to be Librarian-in-Chief
Books and George Bush haven't always been the best of friends. While the First Lady, and former librarian, knows her way around a novel, her husband has always been more famous for holding them upside down. But not for much longer. Presidential libraries provide their namesakes with their last, great chance to make a statement. And with just 206 days left in office, $500 million plans for George W. Bush's are well underway. With all this in mind, The Chronicle of Higher Education solicited back-of-envelope reader designs for Bush's Presidential Library. An underground bunker? Floating on fountains? Equipped with a labryinth for Cheney? Book shaped? In they all came. You can see the designs and vote for your favourite entry here. Alice Fishburn
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