A day for democrats

In Iraq there are 'signs that democracy is beginning to catch on'.

Here's one of them perhaps:

For the first time, the televised campaign debate has come to Iraq, and it has brought with it a level of civility and political discourse far different from that found on the nation's often bloody streets.

Across Iraq, politicians of all stripes moved with fear as they campaigned for Thursday's parliamentary election. On Tuesday, a Sunni Arab candidate was slain in Ramadi, the fourth office-seeker to be assassinated in recent weeks.

But in Iraqi TV studios, it's a different story.

Politicians are now free to use the medium of televised debates to expose voters to their styles, images and rhetorical flourishes. And here, the tone has been polite.

There have been few interruptions and fewer insults. In a country where eloquence is admired, canned sound bites have been rare.

Salam Pax issues an appeal:

[W]e go to vote again hoping that we won't be blown to pieces. And I really believe that we Iraqis do deserve a bit of credit for having done that twice now. I don't think there is a better demonstration of the will to get this political process rolling and keeping it rolling than participating under the threat of violent death… Keep your fingers crossed for us, will you?

More than a bit of credit is what they deserve. They deserve the support and the solidarity of democrats the world over. Obviously.