Making Sense of Iraq's Vote
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<font size="5"><center>
Defying bombers,
Iraqi security forces vote en masse</font size></center>
By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers
March 4, 2010
BAGHDAD — Shrapnel had flown into Ali al Tamimi's eyes, partially blinding him, and both of his legs were broken in several places.
Not even 24 hours after receiving the injuries in a suicide bombing northeast of Baghdad, however, Tamimi cast a ballot from his hospital bed, joining hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis who voted Thursday in an early round reserved for security forces, detainees and hospital patients who might not be able to make it to the polls for Sunday's parliamentary election.
"I challenge them. I will vote in spite of them!" Tamimi, the head of health services in Diyala province, said of the bombers. "This is our chance to elect a better future for Iraq."
The early voting highlighted three mainstays of an Iraqi Election Day: the resilience of voters, in this case the nation's beleaguered security forces; sectarian-laced allegations of electoral fraud; and the determination of militants to disrupt the process. Attacks near polling stations in Baghdad killed at least 12 people Thursday and wounded more than 45, authorities said.
The day belonged foremost to Iraqi police, military and other security forces, who are the nation's first defense now that U.S. forces have pulled out of major cities in preparation for a full withdrawal by the end of next year. Baghdad's streets were mostly empty due to a public holiday, allowing military trucks to deliver clapping, chanting Iraqi troops to vote at heavily guarded polling places.
A Katyusha rocket landed near a closed polling station in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing five people and wounding 10, police said. Two suicide bombers wearing explosives vests struck in separate incidents in Baghdad: one in Mansour killed at least three people and wounded 25; another in Bab al Muatham killed four and wounded 10, according to police. Both attacks occurred outside polling stations where Iraqi security forces were voting.
In the Bab al Muatham attack, casualties could have been far higher were it not for the last deed of Iraqi army Capt. Faisal Shahad Jasim, who rushed the bomber and tackled him before he could enter the polling station, Iraqi state television reported. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki awarded Jasim a posthumous promotion of two ranks.
Security officials in the mostly Sunni Muslim western Anbar province complained that the names of thousands of police and military personnel were missing from polling stations or were registered at voting sites up to 250 miles away. The flap only solidified the doubts many Sunnis have about an electoral process that Shiite Muslims and Kurds are overseeing.
To avoid a controversy with sectarian undertones, Iraqi election officials announced that security forces who couldn't find their names on voter rolls would be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Voting hours also were extended in some areas as election officials scrambled to get the correct rolls.
"It's the fault of the Ministries of Interior and Defense for not providing us with the added names of military personnel and police. They didn't provide all the names for the special vote," said Qassim al Aboudi, a senior official on Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission, the body that's supervising the elections.
Elsewhere, voting went mostly smoothly and with a festive air.
In Baghdad's market district of Kadhemiya, a group of Iraqi soldiers ate falafel sandwiches and proudly displayed ink-stained fingers that marked them as voters. They also reflected on how much stronger the military is as an institution now that they're more professional and battle-tested and they operate under an Iraqi command that no longer answers to Americans.
When they were recruits about three years ago, some of the soldiers recalled, it was still too dangerous for them to wear their uniforms while they were off-duty for fear that insurgents would target them as "collaborators" with the U.S. military. Because of the complicity of some renegade security forces in sectarian mass killings, ordinary Iraqis also looked at them as potential attackers rather than protectors.
"Before, we didn't feel safe standing at our checkpoints and the people didn't feel safe going through them, wondering who it really was checking them," said Riyadh Hassan, 19, a soldier from Diyala who's stationed in Baghdad. "Now we wear our uniforms proudly and walk in the streets."
Before he got too carried away with the sentimentality, his comrades teased him that he was too young to remember the bad old days. "You still had your bottle!" one teased. "He's a baby!" joked another.
Excitement over the election was also evident among groups of police, who remain the most troubled of Iraq's security forces because of the infiltration of Shiite militias, although there's no disputing that today's forces are far more disciplined than in recent years.
A raucous group of emergency police, who spend perilous five-hour shifts at checkpoints and are among the first responders to attacks, waited to vote on a curb outside a polling station in Baghdad. Before answering questions about elections, they dug their black berets from pockets to complete their uniforms.
"We have to look professional," said Haider Ali Farajallah, 24, of Baghdad's Sadr City district, with a mock air of officiousness.
The officers said their minds were made up about favorite candidates, though there was fierce debate over who was best to run the next government. Poking fun at their own disagreements, when they were asked whether they were happy about Election Day, one cracked, "Wait a minute. Let us debate that."
Sectarianism was the only taboo topic. Unlike the parliamentary election of 2005, when candidates ran on sectarian platforms that only worsened relations between Sunnis and Shiites, there was a sense that voters have grown weary of such rhetoric.
"We've left our families to protect our country, and we're in this together," said Officer Ammar Qassim, 24, a Shiite, who pretended to kiss a Sunni comrade. "See? This gentleman is from Fallujah. And this gentleman is from Sadr City. We are brothers."
McClatchy special correspondents Mohammed al Dulaimy in Baghdad, Jamal Naji in Fallujah and an Iraqi reporter in Baqouba who can't be named for security reasons contributed to this article.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/04/89838/baghdad-bombings-shatter-festive.html
Defying bombers,
Iraqi security forces vote en masse</font size></center>
By Hannah Allam | McClatchy Newspapers
March 4, 2010
BAGHDAD — Shrapnel had flown into Ali al Tamimi's eyes, partially blinding him, and both of his legs were broken in several places.
Not even 24 hours after receiving the injuries in a suicide bombing northeast of Baghdad, however, Tamimi cast a ballot from his hospital bed, joining hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis who voted Thursday in an early round reserved for security forces, detainees and hospital patients who might not be able to make it to the polls for Sunday's parliamentary election.
"I challenge them. I will vote in spite of them!" Tamimi, the head of health services in Diyala province, said of the bombers. "This is our chance to elect a better future for Iraq."
The early voting highlighted three mainstays of an Iraqi Election Day: the resilience of voters, in this case the nation's beleaguered security forces; sectarian-laced allegations of electoral fraud; and the determination of militants to disrupt the process. Attacks near polling stations in Baghdad killed at least 12 people Thursday and wounded more than 45, authorities said.
The day belonged foremost to Iraqi police, military and other security forces, who are the nation's first defense now that U.S. forces have pulled out of major cities in preparation for a full withdrawal by the end of next year. Baghdad's streets were mostly empty due to a public holiday, allowing military trucks to deliver clapping, chanting Iraqi troops to vote at heavily guarded polling places.
A Katyusha rocket landed near a closed polling station in the Baghdad neighborhood of Hurriyah, killing five people and wounding 10, police said. Two suicide bombers wearing explosives vests struck in separate incidents in Baghdad: one in Mansour killed at least three people and wounded 25; another in Bab al Muatham killed four and wounded 10, according to police. Both attacks occurred outside polling stations where Iraqi security forces were voting.
In the Bab al Muatham attack, casualties could have been far higher were it not for the last deed of Iraqi army Capt. Faisal Shahad Jasim, who rushed the bomber and tackled him before he could enter the polling station, Iraqi state television reported. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki awarded Jasim a posthumous promotion of two ranks.
Security officials in the mostly Sunni Muslim western Anbar province complained that the names of thousands of police and military personnel were missing from polling stations or were registered at voting sites up to 250 miles away. The flap only solidified the doubts many Sunnis have about an electoral process that Shiite Muslims and Kurds are overseeing.
To avoid a controversy with sectarian undertones, Iraqi election officials announced that security forces who couldn't find their names on voter rolls would be allowed to cast provisional ballots. Voting hours also were extended in some areas as election officials scrambled to get the correct rolls.
"It's the fault of the Ministries of Interior and Defense for not providing us with the added names of military personnel and police. They didn't provide all the names for the special vote," said Qassim al Aboudi, a senior official on Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission, the body that's supervising the elections.
Elsewhere, voting went mostly smoothly and with a festive air.
In Baghdad's market district of Kadhemiya, a group of Iraqi soldiers ate falafel sandwiches and proudly displayed ink-stained fingers that marked them as voters. They also reflected on how much stronger the military is as an institution now that they're more professional and battle-tested and they operate under an Iraqi command that no longer answers to Americans.
When they were recruits about three years ago, some of the soldiers recalled, it was still too dangerous for them to wear their uniforms while they were off-duty for fear that insurgents would target them as "collaborators" with the U.S. military. Because of the complicity of some renegade security forces in sectarian mass killings, ordinary Iraqis also looked at them as potential attackers rather than protectors.
"Before, we didn't feel safe standing at our checkpoints and the people didn't feel safe going through them, wondering who it really was checking them," said Riyadh Hassan, 19, a soldier from Diyala who's stationed in Baghdad. "Now we wear our uniforms proudly and walk in the streets."
Before he got too carried away with the sentimentality, his comrades teased him that he was too young to remember the bad old days. "You still had your bottle!" one teased. "He's a baby!" joked another.
Excitement over the election was also evident among groups of police, who remain the most troubled of Iraq's security forces because of the infiltration of Shiite militias, although there's no disputing that today's forces are far more disciplined than in recent years.
A raucous group of emergency police, who spend perilous five-hour shifts at checkpoints and are among the first responders to attacks, waited to vote on a curb outside a polling station in Baghdad. Before answering questions about elections, they dug their black berets from pockets to complete their uniforms.
"We have to look professional," said Haider Ali Farajallah, 24, of Baghdad's Sadr City district, with a mock air of officiousness.
The officers said their minds were made up about favorite candidates, though there was fierce debate over who was best to run the next government. Poking fun at their own disagreements, when they were asked whether they were happy about Election Day, one cracked, "Wait a minute. Let us debate that."
Sectarianism was the only taboo topic. Unlike the parliamentary election of 2005, when candidates ran on sectarian platforms that only worsened relations between Sunnis and Shiites, there was a sense that voters have grown weary of such rhetoric.
"We've left our families to protect our country, and we're in this together," said Officer Ammar Qassim, 24, a Shiite, who pretended to kiss a Sunni comrade. "See? This gentleman is from Fallujah. And this gentleman is from Sadr City. We are brothers."
McClatchy special correspondents Mohammed al Dulaimy in Baghdad, Jamal Naji in Fallujah and an Iraqi reporter in Baqouba who can't be named for security reasons contributed to this article.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/03/04/89838/baghdad-bombings-shatter-festive.html
<font size="5"><center>
Iraq Campaign Closes With a Sadr Twist</font size><font size="4">
Final Day on the Stump Sees Shiite Cleric Dispatch Voting
Orders, Prime Minister Slam Foe and Challenger Claim Fraud</font size></center>
Iraqis, after a rally for Moqtada al-Sadr's slate in Sadr City, inaugurate a renovated mural
showing his father-in-law, Mohamed Baqer al-Sadr, left, and father, Mohamed Sadeq al-Sadr.
Wall Street Journal
By CHARLES LEVINSON
MARCH 6, 2010
BAGHDAD—Iraq's leading candidates made final appeals to voters and an influential anti-U.S. cleric unveiled a unique election-day strategy, on the final day of campaigning for Sunday's national polls.
Meanwhile, expatriate voters cast ballots in 16 countries Friday, a day after early polling was held for security forces, hospital patients and prisoners.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and competitor Ayad Allawi exchanged final barbs at separate news conferences on Friday. Campaigning for the parliamentary election is banned Saturday.
Mr. Maliki criticized Mr. Allawi for spending campaign time meeting with Arab leaders throughout the region, including Turkey. Mr. Allawi used his last campaign appearance to raise allegations of electoral fraud, saying he had filed complaints with the Iraqi election commission and the United Nations, and that the number and severity of violations raised questions about the legitimacy of the vote.
The result of the election, and whether it is perceived as free and fair, will shape Iraq's democracy and the U.S. role here in the coming years.
Shiite party leader-in-exile Muqtada al-Sadr has maintained a low profile throughout much of the campaign. But Friday, through a senior aide at a Baghdad rally, the cleric gave block-by-block voting orders to thousands of supporters, in an effort to outmaneuver his own coalition partners within the Iran-backed, predominantly Shiite Iraqi National Alliance.
The message showed how voting tactics and a grass-roots organization could deliver the controversial cleric a disproportionate share of Shiite votes and significant leverage in the next government.
A strong showing by Mr. Sadr's slate of candidates would be troubling for the U.S. The movement maintains close ties to Iran and has been a relentless critic of Washington.
Mr. Sadr, the son of one of Iraq's most revered former clerics, led armed resistance to U.S. troops in the aftermath of the American-led invasion in 2003. But he has been living in self-imposed exile in Iran since 2007.
At the Sadr rally Friday, Hazem al-Arraji, a top Sadr aide and a widely known senior Shiite cleric, reiterated the movement's support for armed resistance to U.S. forces in Iraq. In practice, however, Mr. Sadr's cadres have been mostly quiet since late 2008.
In the final week of the campaign, reports rippled through Iraq that Mr. Sadr would return just before the vote, and that the government had issued a warrant for his arrest. Representatives of his movement showed journalists a piece of paper they claimed was the arrest warrant.
Mr. Maliki's government said no arrest warrant had been issued.
On Friday, Mr. Sadr's aides distributed thousands of pamphlets directing Baghdad residents to vote for specific candidates for Mr. Sadr's Iraqi National Alliance. The directions broke out preferred candidates for 80 different areas in Sadr City, the Baghdad slum that has long been a Sadr stronghold.
Unlike the general election in 2005—Iraq's first after the fall of Saddam Hussein—voters this time are casting ballots for individual candidates rather than slates.
Any votes a candidate receives above the threshold needed to win a seat will be distributed to other candidates on the slate.
As a result, if too many people vote for the same Sadrist candidate, those votes could wind up going to other parties on the broader, Shiite slate, such as the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq, or ISCI. Though allied for this election, Mr. Sadr's movement and ISCI are historically fierce rivals.
"We don't want to lose votes to candidates from other parties on our list," Mr. Arraji, the Sadr aide, told the thousands of followers who massed on a wide boulevard in Sadr City. "We want the Sadr bloc to be the dominant bloc on the list."
To avoid diluting their voting power among candidates who won't meet the seat threshold, Mr. Sadr's campaign strategists decided to run just one candidate for each seat.
Nearly every other party is fielding two candidates per seat as the law allows. Their assumption: The more candidates the broader list has on the ballot, the more overall votes it will garner as a whole.
Despite a string of attacks at or near Baghdad polling stations on Thursday, senior Obama administration officials said they believed the early round of voting went relatively well.
Since Iraqi security forces were voting early, the risk of attacks may have been higher than it will be on Sunday, they said. "They seemed to have passed the test [Thursday], at least," said one senior administration official.
The U.N. expected about half-a-million expatriates to participate in the voting on Friday. Voting in Syria and Jordan—countries that have taken in large numbers of Iraqis fleeing violence—appeared to go smoothly. In London, a fistfight broke out at one polling station, according to footage broadcast prominently by Iraqi satellite channels. The reason for the brawl wasn't clear.
—Ben Lando and Peter Spiegel contributed to this article.
Write to Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...5103851437150096.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
Iraq Campaign Closes With a Sadr Twist</font size><font size="4">
Final Day on the Stump Sees Shiite Cleric Dispatch Voting
Orders, Prime Minister Slam Foe and Challenger Claim Fraud</font size></center>
Iraqis, after a rally for Moqtada al-Sadr's slate in Sadr City, inaugurate a renovated mural
showing his father-in-law, Mohamed Baqer al-Sadr, left, and father, Mohamed Sadeq al-Sadr.
Wall Street Journal
By CHARLES LEVINSON
MARCH 6, 2010
BAGHDAD—Iraq's leading candidates made final appeals to voters and an influential anti-U.S. cleric unveiled a unique election-day strategy, on the final day of campaigning for Sunday's national polls.
Meanwhile, expatriate voters cast ballots in 16 countries Friday, a day after early polling was held for security forces, hospital patients and prisoners.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and competitor Ayad Allawi exchanged final barbs at separate news conferences on Friday. Campaigning for the parliamentary election is banned Saturday.
Mr. Maliki criticized Mr. Allawi for spending campaign time meeting with Arab leaders throughout the region, including Turkey. Mr. Allawi used his last campaign appearance to raise allegations of electoral fraud, saying he had filed complaints with the Iraqi election commission and the United Nations, and that the number and severity of violations raised questions about the legitimacy of the vote.
The result of the election, and whether it is perceived as free and fair, will shape Iraq's democracy and the U.S. role here in the coming years.
Shiite party leader-in-exile Muqtada al-Sadr has maintained a low profile throughout much of the campaign. But Friday, through a senior aide at a Baghdad rally, the cleric gave block-by-block voting orders to thousands of supporters, in an effort to outmaneuver his own coalition partners within the Iran-backed, predominantly Shiite Iraqi National Alliance.
The message showed how voting tactics and a grass-roots organization could deliver the controversial cleric a disproportionate share of Shiite votes and significant leverage in the next government.
A strong showing by Mr. Sadr's slate of candidates would be troubling for the U.S. The movement maintains close ties to Iran and has been a relentless critic of Washington.
Mr. Sadr, the son of one of Iraq's most revered former clerics, led armed resistance to U.S. troops in the aftermath of the American-led invasion in 2003. But he has been living in self-imposed exile in Iran since 2007.
At the Sadr rally Friday, Hazem al-Arraji, a top Sadr aide and a widely known senior Shiite cleric, reiterated the movement's support for armed resistance to U.S. forces in Iraq. In practice, however, Mr. Sadr's cadres have been mostly quiet since late 2008.
In the final week of the campaign, reports rippled through Iraq that Mr. Sadr would return just before the vote, and that the government had issued a warrant for his arrest. Representatives of his movement showed journalists a piece of paper they claimed was the arrest warrant.
Mr. Maliki's government said no arrest warrant had been issued.
On Friday, Mr. Sadr's aides distributed thousands of pamphlets directing Baghdad residents to vote for specific candidates for Mr. Sadr's Iraqi National Alliance. The directions broke out preferred candidates for 80 different areas in Sadr City, the Baghdad slum that has long been a Sadr stronghold.
Unlike the general election in 2005—Iraq's first after the fall of Saddam Hussein—voters this time are casting ballots for individual candidates rather than slates.
Any votes a candidate receives above the threshold needed to win a seat will be distributed to other candidates on the slate.
As a result, if too many people vote for the same Sadrist candidate, those votes could wind up going to other parties on the broader, Shiite slate, such as the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq, or ISCI. Though allied for this election, Mr. Sadr's movement and ISCI are historically fierce rivals.
"We don't want to lose votes to candidates from other parties on our list," Mr. Arraji, the Sadr aide, told the thousands of followers who massed on a wide boulevard in Sadr City. "We want the Sadr bloc to be the dominant bloc on the list."
To avoid diluting their voting power among candidates who won't meet the seat threshold, Mr. Sadr's campaign strategists decided to run just one candidate for each seat.
Nearly every other party is fielding two candidates per seat as the law allows. Their assumption: The more candidates the broader list has on the ballot, the more overall votes it will garner as a whole.
Despite a string of attacks at or near Baghdad polling stations on Thursday, senior Obama administration officials said they believed the early round of voting went relatively well.
Since Iraqi security forces were voting early, the risk of attacks may have been higher than it will be on Sunday, they said. "They seemed to have passed the test [Thursday], at least," said one senior administration official.
The U.N. expected about half-a-million expatriates to participate in the voting on Friday. Voting in Syria and Jordan—countries that have taken in large numbers of Iraqis fleeing violence—appeared to go smoothly. In London, a fistfight broke out at one polling station, according to footage broadcast prominently by Iraqi satellite channels. The reason for the brawl wasn't clear.
—Ben Lando and Peter Spiegel contributed to this article.
Write to Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...5103851437150096.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
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