IRAQ: The Pasha's Poll

Circumstances demanded an election. Before Iraq could merge with the desert kingdom of Jordan to form an Arab federation opposed to Nasser's, Iraq's tough old (70) Strongman Nuri asSaid needed a mandate from his Iraqi voters. They had no more choice in the matter of candidates than Nasser gave the Egyptians in the plebiscite he ran off last February. Nuri was not even so insistent as Nasser that everyone get out and vote. Last week about 25% of the voters turned out peaceably at the polls, and Nuri Pasha's candidates, being unopposed, won all 145 seats. Most Baghdad newspapers reported the results next day on inside pages.

The new Parliament having duly ratified the federation, Nuri is expected to resign, and then the two young Hashemite cousins, Iraq's King Feisal and Jordan's King Hussein, will name 20 Deputies apiece to form the new federal Parliament. Then Feisal as chief of state will ask somebody to put together a new Arab federation Cabinet. The new Premier will almost certainly be Nuri Pasha himself, or else someone agreeable to the man who fought in the original World War I Arab nationalist "desert revolt" against the Turks, has 14 times been Iraq's Premier, and its strongman for the last generation.