Allegations of fraud taint Iraqi election results

From the Post:

Sunni and secular political groups angrily claimed Tuesday that last week's Iraqi national election was rigged, demanded a new vote and threatened to leave a shambles the delicate plan to bring the country's wary factions together in a new government.

Faced with preliminary vote counts that suggest a strong victory by the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of Shiite Muslim religious parties that dominates the outgoing government, political leaders of Iraq's Sunni Arab minority hinted that insurgent violence would be accelerated by the suspicions of fraud.

Of course, these allegations are coming from the losers: Sunni parties and Ayad Allawi. Let's hope there's nothing to them and that the election was conducted fairly, but as long as the perception of fraud remains, that is, as long as allegations of fraud are tossed around without solid proof to the contrary (which there may never be), it seems unlikely that Sunnis -- many of them, anyway -- will see the election as a legitimate expression of the popular will or the new government as the legitimate ruler of Iraq.

Though, it should be added, many of them never will. Which is why insurgency and the possibility of civil war is in Iraq to stay for a good long time.