The People: In Their Own Voice.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Democracy: Anyone can claim to speak for the public, but elections are the real thing. The world will now be learning what ordinary Iraqis really want.

"The people have spoken" may be one of the oldest cliches in American politics, but it still means something in places where the novelty of democracy hasn't worn off. In Iraq, for instance, the free expression of the popular will at the ballot box is a new thing. More than new, it's revolutionary. In most of the Middle East, it hasn't even been tried.

That lack of a true popular voice has been good for dictators and corrupt monarchies. But it's not just tyrants who thrive when elections are nonexistent or rigged. When the people are forced into silence, pretenders get the floor.

Journalists and clerics act as if they are influencing or expressing public opinions when they are actually promoting a narrow range of state-approved views. Political talk in the press and pulpit tends to focus on real or imagined external threats and goes easy on the domestic powers-that-be.

Elsewhere real or self-styled experts make their own claims about what the people of the Middle East are thinking. Western media airs their views of the "Arab street," those silent masses so often said to be ready to explode. With so little freely spoken, it's easy to speculate. It's also easy for those with extreme views, video cameras and hostages to look bigger than they are. With the media constantly looking for blood, terrorists get their chance to pose as a popular movement.

But elections are great reality checks. Sunday's voting ...