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Sunni Arabs vote for inclusion
16.12.2005
By IWPR staff in Iraq (ICR No. 157, 15-Dec-05)
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They boycotted previous
elections, but this time the Sunni Arabs appear to
have decided they want a role in government.
As Iraqis across the country went to the polls to
elect a permanent parliament, voter turnout in some
Sunni Arab areas was estimated as high as 90 per
cent.
High voter participation in areas like Anbar
province, the scene of much of the insurgent
fighting, indicated that unlike the election and
referendum held earlier this year, the Sunni Arabs
wanted to make their voices heard in this ballot.
Election day passed with little violence, and voters
appeared to be less jittery about poll security than
they were in ballots earlier this year. While there
were problems with some voter registration lists in
the northern Kurdish regions, few violations were
reported,
Security was tight in most of the country. Voters
had their bags checked and were forced to switch off
their mobile phones before entering polling stations
in Baghdad, where the streets were mostly quiet.
In contrast, a celebratory atmosphere engulfed
Sulaimaniyah, a Kurdish city in northeastern Iraq
that has experienced little violence since Saddam
Hussein was overthrown in April 2003. Honking cars
draped in Kurdish flags choked the streets, but
there were no Iraqi national flags to be seen.
Voting at some of Iraq's 6,200 polling stations was
extended until 6 pm due to the unexpectedly high
turnout. Some polling centres in areas like Fallujah
actually ran out of ballot papers, so more were
delivered to allow registered voters to take part.
There were 20 coalitions vying for seats in Iraq's
275-seat parliament. The new National Congress will
be Iraq's first permanent parliament since Saddam's
fall and will hold power for four years.
Approximately 15 million Iraqis were eligible to
vote in an election that was monitored by 70,000
observers. Turnout appeared high in most provinces,
electoral officials and monitors reported. Farid
Ayar, spokesman for the Independent Electoral
Commission in Iraq, IECI, said it did not expect to
release final election results for at least two
weeks.
Sunni Arabs had largely boycotted post-Baathist
Iraqi politics - but they turned out in force this
time, according to observers across Iraq. They
mostly went for Sunni Arab coalitions, but secular
lists such as the Iraqi National list led by former
prime minister Ayad Allawi also appeared to win some
backing, sources in several provinces reported.
In the western province of Anbar, electoral
commission director Saad Abdul-Azeez estimated that
90 per cent of the region's 667,000 eligible voters
had cast ballots. Fifty-eight polling stations
opened in Ramadi, the volatile capital of Anbar, and
in surrounding areas such as Qaim, Rutba and Haditha.
If the projections prove accurate, this election
will mark an astonishing change in voter
participation, in a province where only a limited
number of polling stations opened for the January
parliamentary election and the constitutional
referendum in October. Fallujah was a battleground
between United States forces and insurgents ahead of
the January poll, and Ramadi has seen clashes since
September.
The presence of US forces is opposed by many people
in Anbar, so they played an arms’s length supporting
role to local units who took charge at the polls.
Working through local leaders, the Iraqi government
armed about 1,500 residents to provide security,
according to Brigadier-General Jubair Gataa, who
commanded of a local force of residents.
"We worked with the multinational forces so that
they wouldn't enter the town except in case of
urgent need - and they didn't. Residents found only
one bomb near a polling station, and it was
defused," said a security coordinator with the
electoral commission in Anbar, who asked to remain
anonymous.
"The fighting might resume tomorrow," said Khawla
Abdullah, a teacher. "But we look forward to
democracy, safety and freedom."
Abdul-Rahman al-Mashhadani, an election monitor in
Baghdad with the non-governmental organisation
Hamurabi, said no major violations occurred in
Baghdad. He expected 90 per cent turnout in Sunni
Arab areas.
"I'm participating in the elections for the first
time," said Qussay Abdul-Aziz, a 32-year-old
professor at Al-Mustansiriyah University in Baghdad.
"I couldn't sleep last night thinking about who I
should vote for. I think I have done something
good."
He endorsed one of the main Sunni Arab coalitions,
the Iraq National Accord Front.
In Baghdad, a mortar shell lightly injured two
civilians and a US Marine when it exploded just
outside the Green Zone. There was also an attack on
the northern town of Tal Afar, and a grenade killed
a guard near a polling station in Mosul, the
Associated Press reported.
In Tikrit, the largely Sunni Arab hometown of Saddam
in central Iraq, high turnout was reportedly high.
Police patrol cars and even ambulances roamed the
streets, using loudspeakers to blast messages
encouraging people to vote and assuring them that it
was safe.
Martial law was in effect for the elections, but was
lifted in Tikrit because security there was already
tight enough, Salahaddin provincial governor Hamad
Mahmood Shakiti announced on local television.
While the northern Kurdish regions remained
relatively calm, some voters found their names had
been left off the electoral roll. Dozens of them
staged a protest outside the electoral commission
office in Sulaimaniyah, where local officials
reported that as many as 10,000 names were missing
from the official voter lists sent from Baghdad.
"I suffered a lot in the mountains for the sake of
this day, and now I'm being deprived of the
opportunity," said Ibraheem Kareem Faraj, a veteran
from the Kurdish Peshmerga forces whose name was not
registered with the electoral commission.
In Dahuk in northwestern Iraqi Kurdistan, 30,000
names were missing from official registrar lists.
Election officials in the local capital Erbil said
the voters were allowed to cast ballots after
electoral staff decided to use registration lists
from the January election.
At a polling centre in Erbil, Salahaddin Muhammed
Bahaadin, secretary general of the Islamic Union of
Kurdistan party, and several of his deputies and
bodyguards were beaten with rifle butts by security
guards when they went to vote, according to Halkawt
Ali, one of his staffers. Some of his deputies were
slightly injured.
"We are aware of the incident, but we can't do
anything because we haven't received an official
complaint," Abdul-Masih Salman, director of the IECI
office in Erbil.
Offices of the Islamic Union of Kurdistan were
attacked shortly before the election. The party was
formerly part of the main Kurdish list, the
Kurdistan Alliance, but decided to go it alone in
this election.
In the Shia holy city of Najaf, a polling station
director who asked to remain anonymous estimated
that 90 to 95 per cent of the voters supported the
Shia-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, which was
listed as no. 555 on the ballot papers.
Several handicapped voters chanting "555" were
rolled in wheelbarrows to vote, and many voters
marched to polling stations waving photos of Iraq's
top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
"I have told my son that I'll seek someone’s hand in
marriage for him on election day," said Najaf
housewife Ibtisam Hussein. "We want to bring
happiness twice."
Parliament and thus the cabinet are currently
dominated by the United Iraqi Alliance, but some
voters have accused the leadership of sectarianism,
and many are frustrated with the government’s
failure to deliver security. The alliance and the
Kurdish bloc, which came second in the January
polls, are expected to lose some seats to Sunni Arab
coalitions which boycotted that election but are
taking part this time round.
Sistani, who strongly influences religious Shia
voters, did not endorse any list but encouraged
voters to back candidates supporting their values.
Many observers believed this call would keep his
followers from voting for secular Shia lists such as
Allawi's Iraqi National List and deputy prime
minister Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.
"We have received no complaints from monitors who
were supervising the process," said Ali al-Batat,
head of one of the polling centres in Basra, a
predominantly Shia region in southern Iraq. "Turnout
was very good and exceeded 70 per cent."
This report was compiled from reports by IWPR
trainee journalists Daud Salman in Baghdad; Yasin
al-Dilaimi in Ramadi; Jasim al-Sabaawi in Tikrit;
Frman Abdul-Rahman in Erbil; Talar Nadir in
Sulaimaniyah; Haider al-Musawi in Najaf; and Safaa
Mansoor in Basra.
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