Electricity.

The electricity situation in Baghdad has improved lately although still not back to what it used to be 2 months ago when we had about 18-20 hours of electricity per day. Since that time and as a result of the continuous sabotage the power supply deteriorated day by day till we reached a state where we used to have less than 2 hours of electricity per day, and we never even knew when during the day would that be!

However, for the past few days the power supply has been gradually improving, and now we have 12 hours of electricity per day and it has been regular for the past two days.
Many people here don't understand why this outage keeps happening although the complains are less than before, as compared to the troubles that ensue in summer from the long electricity outage, the current situation does not represent a big problem.

I've heard a lot of people blaming the minister of electricity for this poor performance of his ministry. I personally don't agree with this, as the infrastructure in Iraq is terribly fragile as a result of the wars and Saddam's deliberate neglect for the people's needs. Still, this minister is an a***ole and people have the right to say such things about him, as in an interview on Iraqiya TV he mentioned that the terrorists can win easily in this sector and can destroy our efforts simply by bringing down one or two of the high voltage towers that transmit electrical power from Beji to Baghdad! As even though he's right, but as a leader he should not say such things in public and at such critical times when people need to see some optimism not defeatism. He was like saying to the terrorists, "Hey, we're so easy, so why don't you focus a little bit more and I guarantee you that you will destroy us!"

This is not the only jack a** we have in power as there are many of them and although Allawi has proven more than once his commitment and optimism in a democratic Iraq, his choice of men is certainly far from good. Of course there are so many parties and powers that had an effect in distributing authorities other than Allawi, and that's why I think that most Iraqis won't vote for the existing 'major' political parties in the future. This may not be so evident in the 1st election but I have no doubt that with the ones that will follow these parties will lose a lot of ground for the small more democratic and liberal parties.