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ERBIL,
Kurdistan-Iraq 19 Dec 2005 (IRIN) - A number of
voters in the northern Kurdish regions were
prevented from casting ballots in Iraq’s 15 December
parliamentary elections due to reported omissions in
the official list of voters, officials said on
Sunday.
“We have proof that thousands of Kurds were kept
from the polls because their names weren’t included
on voter lists,” said Fadia Fateh, a senior official
in the Erbil electoral commission.
“We managed to help some people to vote, but
hundreds of others left polling stations without
voting,” she added.
The phenomenon was mostly seen in the
majority-Kurdish cities of Kirkuk, Sulaimaniyah and
Erbil, and, to a lesser extent, in other isolated
areas of the country.
The Independent Electoral Commission in Iraq (IECI),
responsible for issuing voter lists, explained that
such problems were common whenever large numbers of
voters are registered.
“We’re analysing all the possibilities of list
problems,” IECI spokesperson Farid Ayar said on
Sunday. “If it’s an internal problem, we’re going to
find it soon.”
According to Ayar, the IECI had received information
that around 5,000 names had been missing from voter
lists. He added, however, that this figure had not
been confirmed and still needed to be investigated.
“It’s a very delicate issue, and we can’t turn it
into a big problem based on unconfirmed comments,”
Ayar added.
Fateh noted that, in the days leading up to the
vote, the IECI had been informed about some missing
names but offered no response before the election
deadline.
While Fateh believes that the inconsistencies may
have kept as many as 70,000 Kurds from voting, IECI
officials in the capital, Baghdad, maintained that
this was impossible, adding that a commission was
already “working seriously” to study the issue.
Some Erbil residents complained that the omissions
represented de facto persecution against Kurds and
aimed to provide Arabs in the area with a higher
number of votes.
“I can’t believe that so serious a commission could
forget to add more than 70,000 names to the lists in
the north of Kurdistan,” said Diran Ayad, a 34-year
old shopkeeper in Erbil. “It’s nothing more than a
way of keeping us away from the polls – but it won’t
be enough to change the final results.”
Despite the irregularities, Samir Wissam, a senior
official in the Kirkuk electoral commission, told
IRIN: “We were happy with the elections which showed
a big improvement on last January’s vote, when
dozens of violations were reported.”
“This time, there have been relatively few reports
of abuse,” Wissam added.
www.irinnews.org
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