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Parties
in Iraqi Kurdistan accuse each other of election
fraud.
Kurdish parties, including the two main political
groups, are accusing each other of ballot violations
after in the wake of their first democratic
elections in decades.
The two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, PUK, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
KDP, have been trading barbs since the polls opened
on January 30.
The Kurdistan Democratic Islamic Union and the
independent Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party also
joined the fray.
The PUK, KDP and the Kurdistan Democratic Islamic
Union came together to form the Kurdish Alliance
List coalition to run in the elections for the
275-member transitional National Assembly. But for
local elections, including a new 111-member Kurdish
parliament, the parties each campaigned separately.
Aso Ali, head of the PUK's Sulaimaniyah branch, said
at some polling stations, voters were encouraged to
vote for a certain party, which he declined to name.
"There have been [electoral] violations in Erbil,
but we don't want to make the process ugly by
talking about it," Ali said.
Erbil is the regional capital of the KDP-controlled
area of Iraqi Kurdistan in the west while the
eastern part is controlled by the PUK, and its
regional capital is Sulaimaniyah.
Arif Taifoor, a senior KDP official in Sulaimaniyah,
said the KDP will be holding a meeting with other
parties about voter fraud, but the PUK will not be
invited. He also blamed the Independent Electoral
Commission of Iraq, IECI, saying, "They did not
support us, and we have a word to say about their
representatives."
A senior official of the electoral commission office
in Sulaimaniyah, who declined to be named, said the
commission started receiving complaints from parties
all the way through election day.
"We followed up the breaches and some were true and
some were untrue," the election official said. "But
we don't have any tangible evidence and there is no
smoke without fire. There might be some fraud, but
how much, we don't know."
Jabar Mahmood, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic
Solution Party, said his party was aware of many
breaches and they intended to submit a document
detailing the violations to the electoral commission
office.
"There were blank votes in the ballot box that were
later marked in favour of the ruling party or for
the Kurdish Alliance List," he said.
Mahmood admitted his party also committed fraud, as
one of their party election observers offered to
turn a blind eye to violations by other parties in
exchange for three votes for his party.
The Sulaimaniyah electoral commission official also
criticised the PUK and KDP for announcing
preliminary results of the election in some cities
of Iraqi Kurdistan.
"We haven't announced any official statements," he
said. "Only the IECI in Baghdad is allowed to
announce results officially."
Despite the accusations by the Kurdish parties, one
independent election monitor in Sulaimaniyah said
voting was a success.
"There were no breaches from any party," said Rizgar
Mahmood Ali. "The process went very well."
This story has not been bylined because of concerns
for the security of IWPR reporters.
http://www.iwpr.net
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