I think this elections proves that democracy would never work in Arab states, or at least in the next 20 years or more. democratic lebanon and Iraq are good examples of this. in lebanon, we saw how Hariri's son took the "Sunni throne" of his father..waleed janbalt inherting the "Drowz throne" from his father Kamal, etc the press of leb. are controlled by politicians.. and they basically cant criticized Hezbollah, for example. etc Iraq is very similar. its now being shared politically by neighbouring states. Candidates campaigns were financed by syria, iran, saudi, kuwait, turkey, U.S.?, etc same thing with freedom of press, religion factions etc... iraqis had the right to vote just in theory. most of campaigns were based on religion factions. iraqis votes to their tribal and religion cheifs.. there is no sense of nationalism like before. these elections forgot about the high unemployment rates, the growing number of the poor, the wide gap between poor and high class, the dark-aged hospitals, absence of clear water, absence of electricity in some places... the candidate dont suffer from this shitty iraqi life cos they have their own well-equipped neighbourhood at the green zone. it is just a shame to compare iraq before war and now. and this elections just neglect what normal iraqis citizen suffer from. one example, is the growing numbers of iraqi sex traffickers to neighbouring states, who use iraqi girls for prostitution etc.