DinarMan
01-18-2005, 08:59 AM
With the elections coming up, what do you think about a new catagory.... Here's the first thread:
THE IRAQI ELECTION
The long shot
No bodyguards. No campaign cash. Just one man's desire to `make a new society.'
By Evan Osnos
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published January 18, 2005
BAGHDAD -- The long shot sleeps beside the copier.
He slips out of his bed in the storeroom most days by dawn, trims his silver mustache over the sink at his tiny campaign headquarters and straightens his tie for another perilous day in Iraqi politics.
Abid Jassim al-Sa'adi has rarely slept at his house since the night he opened the front door and someone put a gun to his temple. He got out of that one by slamming the door, but that didn't stop the threats, which arrive these days by cell phone. "Stop distributing pamphlets," the voice on the other end barked most recently, "or you know what will happen."
Such is life for a virtual unknown in Iraq's Jan. 30 election for the National Assembly and one of the few independent candidates who has dared to reveal his name and face to voters. Most in the field of 7,471 candidates are arranged in vast alliances, forged along religious, tribal or political lines, headlined by big names and buttressed by bodyguards and cash. Al-Sa'adi is not among them.
The 62-year-old literature professor and former exile is paying for the race out of his own pocket and can afford little protection from the rebels who have killed at least three candidates in the last month in a bid ..........
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501180272jan18,1,2379934.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true
THE IRAQI ELECTION
The long shot
No bodyguards. No campaign cash. Just one man's desire to `make a new society.'
By Evan Osnos
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published January 18, 2005
BAGHDAD -- The long shot sleeps beside the copier.
He slips out of his bed in the storeroom most days by dawn, trims his silver mustache over the sink at his tiny campaign headquarters and straightens his tie for another perilous day in Iraqi politics.
Abid Jassim al-Sa'adi has rarely slept at his house since the night he opened the front door and someone put a gun to his temple. He got out of that one by slamming the door, but that didn't stop the threats, which arrive these days by cell phone. "Stop distributing pamphlets," the voice on the other end barked most recently, "or you know what will happen."
Such is life for a virtual unknown in Iraq's Jan. 30 election for the National Assembly and one of the few independent candidates who has dared to reveal his name and face to voters. Most in the field of 7,471 candidates are arranged in vast alliances, forged along religious, tribal or political lines, headlined by big names and buttressed by bodyguards and cash. Al-Sa'adi is not among them.
The 62-year-old literature professor and former exile is paying for the race out of his own pocket and can afford little protection from the rebels who have killed at least three candidates in the last month in a bid ..........
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501180272jan18,1,2379934.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true