Iraq & Zimbabwe – A tale of two elections

"Claims of democratic elections in Iraq were not just nonsense, they were self-evident nonsense, repeated by every major media entity in the land.

"Consider, by contrast, the response to recent elections in Zimbabwe, run by one of the West’s favourite bad guys – Robert Mugabe. Here, suddenly, the media regained their mental faculties and were able to identify obvious flaws in the process.

"A Guardian editorial observed: “Intimidation, gerrymandering and the use of famine relief as a weapon are just some of the many abuses that have been documented so far” in “what looks like being an utterly flawed election”.

"The same editors had declared the Iraq process “the country’s first free election in decades”, a “landmark election” that would be “in a way, a grand moment”.