THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Thanks for the Brooking Insitute link, but all it really does is parrot the US gov't party line on how many insurgents there are, as the data is taken from gov't reports and interviews with gov't officials; there's no reason to believe the numbers given, as the gov't has a vested interest in under-reporting the number of active insurgents.

IRAQ: Focus on election campaigning

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]


BAGHDAD, 27 Jan 2005 (IRIN) - With only three days to go until Iraq's historic election, many people in the capital, Baghdad, say they don't have any idea of who they are going to vote for and have little information on what each party is offering.

This is mainly due to insecurity hampering election campaigns. It is also the first time a democratic election has been held in Iraq and the process of educating the population on this has been slow due to the situation in the country.

Officials from the electoral commission have responded by saying that with very little time left, it is now down to people themselves to search for more information.

Threats against campaigning politicians have led to a very slow dissemination of party manifestos and some candidates have stopped publicising their movements, especially in the capital, in fear of their lives.

"I was attacked with my friends when we were publishing our agenda posters on the streets of Baghdad. A car passed by and fired at us. There is no safety and sometimes even our families can be targets. We want to help the Iraqis to know more about elections but insurgents don't want that," Mahmoud al-Shirin, member of an Islamic party, told IRIN in Baghdad.

Candidates in Baghdad say their job has been difficult, particularly in recent days, especially after insurgents declared that they would be targeted.

Attacks have become more common in recent days. Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's political party headquarters in Baghdad were attacked on 24 January by a suicide bomber, injuring at least 10 people.

Farid Ayar, deputy for the Higher Independent Electoral Commission (HIEC) told IRIN that polling station locations would only be disclosed close to 30 January and security measures were being implemented. "We cannot do anything more to help them [candidates] with publicising political agendas. The elections are not long off and we have to take care of security first," Ayar added.

There are over 18,000 candidates on 256 political party lists running for a 275-member national assembly, according to the US State Department.

Most of the campaigning is being done in government offices, mosques and schools where candidates can expect at least minimum security and at the same time introduce themselves and their proposals.

The majority of manifestoes promise the same things: security, water, petrol, electricity, employment and peace.

Some 14 million people are eligible to vote in Iraq, but election officials told IRIN that they were expecting between 6 and 8 million to vote on the day.

Approximately 6,000 polling stations have been set up across the country and the election will be monitored by 25,000 Iraqis, according to the US State Department.

Kurdish parties campaigning in the capital have also received threats. Some have stopped work in central Iraq and are concentrating on attracting voters in the north where security is better. "I hope for Iraq to be a country without differences, but some people don't care about a democratic future,"
Diar Junsati, a senior member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), told IRIN.

Junsati added that they have been working hard to mobilise the Kurdish vote for the national assembly and have their seats in the Baghdad government.

"Even between threats we will continue with our political agendas. We are talking about the future of a country that will go down in history," he added.

Iraq's Kurds have enjoyed autonomy in the north since the Gulf war in 1991. Now the two main Kurdish parties, the PUK and the Iraqi Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), who were opponents for more than a decade, have united for the election and will stand together to win as many seats as possible in the national assembly with a view to influencing the new constitution.

Voters in the capital say they want to see results. "I don't care about what they promise. The one thing I care about is who in the assembly will guarantee security and health for us, because we really need those two issues [resolved], but so far haven't decided who to vote for," Linda Ahmed, 37,a shopkeeper in the Mansour district of Baghdad, told IRIN.

At a press conference on Monday, Allawi said that the situation would be critical on the election day and acknowledged that most parties were afraid of campaigning for security reasons. But he added that risks needed to be taken in order to secure Iraq's future.

Despite reassurances, candidates and voters are still worried, as insurgent groups have said that attacks will take place on election day, especially at polling stations. The Al Quaeda-linked group led by Iraq's most-wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi group, has distributed leaflets threatening to behead people who vote.

"I wish to give my vote, but as election day becomes closer the security in the country is worse. God bless all Iraqis and make the insurgents understand that they are talking about lives of innocent people who just want to do their job," Sua'ad Finjen, 39, a mother of two, told IRIN.


[ENDS]

National Assembly speaker predicts 65% turnout for Sunday elections

By Faiz Jawad

Azzaman, 2005-01-27


The majority of Iraqis will head to the polls on January 30 despite calls for boycott and threats by insurgents, according to the speaker of the Transitional National Assembly.

"The turnout will be good and I expect participation in the general elections not to be less than 65% (of eligible voters)," said Fuad Maasoum.

Maasoum is the highest ranking Kurd in the interim Iraqi administration. His remarks regarding the elections come amid a surge in insurgent activity and violence across the country.

Maasoum did not say whether his optimistic forecast was based on any opinion polls conducted in the country recently.

He said he saw "a great many positive instances in the run-up to the elections in the forefront the satisfaction Iraqis have … as they deal with the new experiment (elections)," he said.

A recent opinion poll by a Baghdad University research center indicated that up to 70% of Iraqis will be willing to cast their votes if security conditions improve.


Maasoum rejected claims of massive rigging in the elections. "While rigging and fraud are there in any elections, it is very unlikely that they will be practiced on a scale that will influence the result in the country," he said.

He said for Iraqis it was the first time in many decades to have the chance to take part in democratic elections.

However, he said, he was "convinced" that the monitoring and supervision system currently in place would prevent "the occurrence of fraud that will upset the balance."

Asked whether the elections will still be legitimate despite the large-scale boycott, Maasoum said:

"For the elections to have legitimacy, it is not necessary for all Iraqis to take part in them. The most important point in a democracy is the freedom to vote or not."

But Maasoum said any new government should not ignore those who opt not to vote.

"The government that will be formed after the election must be a national government … It must give those how will boycott the elections a chance to discuss (issues) and take part in almost all political activities and give them a role in drafting the constitution," he said.

Dtom writes

Quote:

great ! will the hollywood righties be doing the same to help bring about democracy, freedom and liberty to the grateful iraqi people ?

There aren't enough Hollywood 'righties' to count I'm afraid.

Monitors too scared to visit Iraq polls

By Andrew Gilligan In Amman, Evening Standard

27 January 2005

Chaos at the heart of the Iraqi elections was revealed today - three days before the country goes to the polls.

The landmark elections are seen as critical to the American bid to bring democracy to the country.

But, with an expected turnout of only one third of voters, they face a string of problems. There has been no campaigning because of security fears - so most candidates are anonymous - and the location of polling stations is being kept secret until the last minute, meaning voters are unlikely to know where to go.

Now the Evening Standard has learned that international election monitors are so fearful of their safety most will not even be in the country they are meant to be scrutinising.

The men and women of the International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE) will not be visiting a single Iraqi polling station, nor meeting a single Iraqi voter. They will pronounce on the election's freedom and fairness from a five-star hotel in Amman, capital of neighbouring Jordan, nearly 1,000 miles west of Baghdad.

International observers are considered vital in all countries moving from tyranny to free voting. In Ukraine, they helped alert the world when the ruling party tried to steal the election. Earlier this month, 800 international monitors scrutinised the election of a successor to Yasser Arafat as Palestinian president.

In Afghanistan 120 international observers were deployed, adding to that poll's credibility. But Iraq is so dangerous for foreigners that of the 50 or so IMIE staff, only three will be in the country on polling day. Even they are unlikely to leave the HQ of Iraq's election commission inside Baghdad's secure Green Zone. Jean-Pierre Kingsley, chairman of the IMIE steering committee, the only member of the monitoring body to be publicly identified, said: "Our mission will be accomplished to the fullest extent possible in the evolving circumstances.

"While the IMIE recognises that it would be desirable to have larger numbers of international observers at polling locations throughout Iraq, we respect that the priority of security forces must be to safeguard Iraqi voters, candidates and electoral staff."

Rick, another IMIE official who asked that his surname not be used, said: "In terms of looking at the actual polling we'll be doing what everybody else is doing - relying on the Iraqis. We have numerous sources inside Iraq with whom we will be in minute-by-minute contact." The IMIE includes experts from nine countries but not one is from an Arab nation.

We never should have gone to war in Iraq in the first place

we never should have disbanded the Iraqi army

we never should have paid enormous sums to American companies to do work in Iraq

we never should have snubbed the rest of the world when it came to Iraq;

we never should have put idiots in charge of rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq;

we should have seen the insurgency coming

we should have used adequate numbers of troops

we shouldn't be torturing men and children who are innocent in Abu Ghraib.

Yeah, it's not an election at all. It's a joke.

Cycloptichorn

This will be certainly one of the strangest elections to date: anonymous candidates, no invigilators, polling stations location secret until last minute,

actually foxy, you'd be surprised. i know quite a few. not names that you'd be likely to recognize for the most part, but there are a lot.

What do you want to bet there will be names to vote for when the people vote?

What do you want to bet there will be names to vote for when the people vote? I am in awe of all of you who keep buying the idiotic charges of the naysayers.

On the subject of Hollywood 'righties', DTOM wrote:

Quote:

actually foxy, you'd be surprised. i know quite a few. not names that you'd be likely to recognize for the most part, but there are a lot.

I'm sure you're probably right. The 'righties' are mostly scorned by the Hollywood elite, don't get Golden Globe or Oscar nominations, and are generally mostly ignored by the left-tilted media unless they can be shown in a critical light. They get quoted if they do say something that is critical of a Republica but otherwise are pretty invisible. But they probably won't be invited to join the photo-op group going to Iraq either (if they in fact actually do go.)

BAGHDAD - Secret ballots are the cornerstone of any democratic process. But little more than two weeks before Iraq's first free elections on Jan. 30, the country is finding that secrecy is being taken to new heights.

The identities of many of the candidates haven't been publicly disclosed and are likely to remain secret until after election day, an illustration of the difficulty in mounting an election amid war.

"Not having the candidates' names known is far from ideal for an election, but I think we can all understand the fears over their safety,'' says a foreign election adviser. "Security is a very big issue for all candidates."

Instead of voting for individual candidates in the election to fill the transitional national assembly, Iraqis will select from a list of 111 political parties, each with its own lengthy slate of candidates that can include between 12 and 275 names.

Seats will be allocated to party lists as a proportion of the total national vote, so if all Iraq's estimated 16 million voters part- icipate, a list will get one parliamentary seat for every 58,000 votes it receives. At least 25 percent of the candidates on each list must be women, though there are only a handful of politically prominent women in the country.

Candidates' identities are not the only remaining secret in the election. To help prevent them from being attacked, the location of polling places will not be released until about a week before the election. Party platforms also seem to be kept secret. Campaigning has also been limited, with almost no mass campaign events or rallies. A recent survey indicates that most Iraqi voters are unaware of the party lists' political platforms.

and if, if, they do, will you call that a "photo op"?