Millions of Iraqis vote by The Guardian / AFP / Reuters / The Age.. 3:09pm 29th Jan, 2005   Monday, January 31, 2005    "People power: Iraqi voters make their mark", by Agence France Presse (AFP) . Compiled by The Daily Star staff.    Iraq's Shiite majority and long-suffering Kurds flocked to polling stations Sunday and even in the Sunni heartland some ventured out despite the deadly unrest overshadowing the election. While in some areas turnout was scant, in most places, including violent Sunni Arab regions, it exceeded expectations.    Many cheered with joy at their first chance to cast a free vote, while others shared chocolates with fellow voters. Even in Fallujah the Sunni city west of Baghdad that was a militant stronghold until a U.S. assault in November, a steady stream of people turned out, confounding expectations. Lines of veiled women clutching their papers waited in line to vote. "We want to be like other Iraqis, we don't want to always be in opposition," said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after he voted. In Baquba, a rebellious city northeast of Baghdad, spirited crowds clapped and danced at one voting station. In Mosul, scene of some of the worst insurgent attacks in recent months, U.S. and local officials said turnout was surprisingly high. That said, there were also areas of the Sunni heartland where turnout was scarce and intimidation appeared to have won.    One of the first to vote was President Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab with a large tribal following, who cast his ballot inside Baghdad's fortress-like Green Zone.    "Thanks be to God," he told reporters, emerging from the booth with his right index finger stained with bright blue ink to show he had voted. In the relatively secure Kurdish north, people flowed steadily to the polls. One illiterate man in Irbil, 76-year-old Said Rasool, came alone and was turned away, unable to read the ballot paper. He said he would return with someone to help. Even in the so-called "triangle of death" south of Baghdad, turnout was solid, officials said. In mainly Shiite Basra, hundreds queued patiently to vote. "I am not afraid," said Samir Khalil Ibrahim. "This is like a festival for all Iraqis." A small group cheered in Baghdad as Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein, a descendant of Iraq's last king, went to the polls. Western Baghdad polling stations were busy, with long queues of voters. Most went about the process routinely, filling in their ballots and leaving quickly without much emotion. Others brought chocolates for those waiting in line, and shared festive juice drinks inside the voting station.    Samir Hassan, 32, who lost his leg in a car bomb blast in October, was determined to vote. "I would have crawled here if I had to. I don't want terrorists to kill other Iraqis like they tried to kill me. Today I am voting for peace," he said, leaning on his crutches.    In Sadr City, northeast Baghdad, thick lines of voters turned out, women in black abaya robes in one line, men in another. Some of the first to vote countrywide were policemen, out in force to protect polling centers from attack, part of security measures put in place by U.S. and Iraqi officials. In Samarra, a city north of Baghdad, only about 100 people voted at one of two polling sites. One woman, covered head-to-toe in black robes, kept her face concealed, but said she had voted with pride. In nearby Baiji, some people were unable to vote because electoral officials failed to turn up. "We are waiting for the manager with the key," said an election worker, apologizing. In the shrine city of Najaf, hundreds of people walked calmly to polling stations. Security around Najaf, attacked before, was some of the tightest. In Kirkuk, a divided city, Kurds turned out in force, as expected, but Arabs and Turkmen appeared to boycott, angered by what they saw as voting rules that favor Kurds. One of the biggest surprises was Mosul, a mixed Sunni Arab and Kurd city in the far north, where U.S. army officers said they were surprised to see long lines at many voting centers. Baghdad's mayor was overcome with emotion by the turnout of voters at City Hall, where he described scenes of thousands celebrating.    "I cannot describe what I am seeing. It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children for the rule of law, for humanity, for love," Alaa al-Tamimi said. - Reuters, AFP    January 31, 2005    "Acts of Bravery", by Bob Herbert. (New York Times)    You'd have to be pretty hardhearted not to be moved by the courage of the millions of Iraqis who insisted on turning out to vote yesterday despite the very real threat that they would be walking into mayhem and violent death at the polls.    At polling stations across the country there were women in veils holding the hands of children, and men on crutches, and people who had been maimed during the terrible years of Saddam, and old people. Among those lined up to vote in Baghdad was Samir Hassan, a 32-year-old man who lost a leg in the blast of a car bomb last year. He told a reporter, "I would have crawled here if I had to."    In a war with very few feel-good moments, yesterday's election would qualify as one. But as with any positive development in Iraq, this one was riddled with caveats. For one thing, dozens of people were, in fact, killed in election day attacks. And shortly after the polls closed, a British military transport plane crashed northwest of Baghdad.    So there was no respite from the carnage.    And we should keep in mind that despite the feelings of pride and accomplishment experienced by so many of the voters, yesterday's election was hardly a textbook example of democracy in action. A real democracy requires an informed electorate. What we saw yesterday was an uncommonly brave electorate. But it was woefully uninformed.    Much of the electorate was voting blind. Half or more of those who went to the polls believed they were voting for a president. They weren't. They were electing a transitional national assembly that will have as its primary task the drafting of a constitution. The Washington Post noted that because of the extreme violence that preceded the election "almost none of the 7,700 candidates for the National Assembly campaigned publicly or even announced their names."    As John F. Burns put it in The Times yesterday: "Half a dozen candidates have been assassinated. As a result, the names of all others have not been made public; they were available in the last days of the campaign on Web sites inaccessible to most Iraqis, few of whom own computers."    "Democracy," according to "The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World," "refers to a form of government in which, in contradistinction to monarchies and aristocracies, the people rule."    That is not the case in Iraq and is not likely to be the case soon. In much of Iraq the people exist in a kind of hell on earth, at the mercy of American forces on the one hand and a variety of enraged insurgents on the other. Despite the pretty words coming out of the Bush administration, the goals of the U.S. and the goals of most ordinary Iraqis are not, by a long stretch, the same.    The desire of the U.S., as embodied by the Bush administration, is to exercise as much control as possible over the Middle East and its crucial oil reserves. There is very little concern here about the plight of ordinary Iraqis, which is why the horrendous casualties being suffered by Iraqi civilians, including women and children, get so little attention.    What most ordinary Iraqis have been expressing, not surprisingly, is a desire for a reasonably decent quality of life. They are a long way from that.    In large swaths of the country, death at the hands of insurgents seems always just moments away. It's also extremely easy for innocent Iraqis to get blown away by Americans. That can occur if drivers get too close - or try to pass - an American military convoy. Or if confusion arising from language barriers, or ignorance of the rules, or just plain nervousness results in an unfortunate move by a vehicle at a checkpoint. Or if someone objects too vociferously to degrading treatment by U.S. forces. Or if someone is simply suspected, wrongly, of being an insurgent.    Crime in many areas is completely out of control. Kidnapping for ransom, including the kidnapping of children, is ubiquitous. Carjackings are commonplace. Rape and murder are widespread.    In a country with the second-largest oil reserves in the world, drivers have to wait in line for hours at a time for gasoline. Electric power is available just a handful of hours a day. Unemployment rates are sky high. With many women destitute, prostitution is a growth industry.    Iraqis may have voted yesterday. But they live in occupied territory, and the occupiers have other things on their minds than the basic wishes of the Iraqi people. That's not democracy. That's a recipe for more war.    Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company    January 30, 2005    Iraqis vote as attacks continue. (The Guardian)    Iraqis voted in nationwide elections today and insurgents retaliated with attacks on polling stations. Iraqi officials reported a turnout of 57%, but at least 37 people were killed in attacks across the country.    Baghdad bore the brunt and 13 people were killed in eight suicide attacks launched in rapid succession at voter queues. Al-Qaida in Iraq, the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility.    In the Sadr City area of Baghdad, a further four people died and seven were wounded when a mortar struck a polling station. Mortar rounds also hit several other cities, killing one person in Hilla.    Insurgents had threatened to kill anyone who took part in the election and promised a torrent of attacks. Zarqawi said voters were "infidels".    US and Iraqi officials imposed strong precautionary measures in the days before the election, closing Iraq's borders and airspace and deploying tens of thousands of armed men. Civilian cars were banned from the streets to guard against car bombings but seven of the eight suicide attackers in Baghdad struck on foot.    Despite the attacks, areas in the west of the capital were fairly busy, with short queues of voters forming. Most went about the process without fuss, filling in their ballots and leaving quickly.    Violence calmed and voting picked up as the day went on, with the Iraqi election commission reporting a turnout of 57%.    Casting his vote in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the interim prime minister Ayad Allawi urged his countrymen to defy the threats and go to the polls.    "This is a historic moment for Iraq, a day when Iraqis can hold their heads high because they are challenging the terrorists and starting to write their future with their own hands," he told reporters.    In the relatively calm south, voters arrived at a school set up as a polling centre in central Basra. "I am not afraid, security is good," said Samir Khalil Ibrahim, a young man voting alone. "I'm really happy; this is like a festival for all Iraqis."    Turnout is expected to be very high in Iraqi Kurdistan and the mostly Shia south, but a low Sunni turnout could undermine the credibility of Iraq's first election since Saddam Hussein was deposed.    Sunni Arabs form 20% of Iraq's population and live predominately in the areas where the insurgency is at its strongest. The largest Sunni religious party boycotted the poll out of fears that the threats of violence would suppress its support. Polls were deserted at first in mostly Sunni cities like Falluja, Ramadi and Samarra in the Sunni triangle around Baghdad, and in the restive, heavily Sunni northern city of Mosul.    The Associated Press reported that the situation changed by the middle of the day and hundreds of people were voting in Samarra and several hundred people were voting on Mosul's eastern side, which includes both Kurdish and Arab neighbourhoods.    US officials in Mosul said voting stations were busy and attacks were few. "So far it's gone very well, much better than expected," a US officer told the Associated Press, as small arms fire echoed in the distance.    In Falluja - an insurgent stronghold until a US assault in November - a thin stream of people turned out to vote, defying expectations. "We want to be like other Iraqis; we don't want to always be in opposition," said Ahmed Jassim, smiling after voting    In Baquba, a rebellious city north-east of Baghdad, crowds clapped and cheered at one voting site.    The chief UN adviser to the Iraqi electoral commission, Carlos Valenzuela, said turnout seemed to be good in most places, but he cautioned it was too early to know for sure.    In the relatively secure Kurdish north, people flowed steadily to the polls in Sulaimaniya and Irbil. Voting was also reported to be brisk in many Shia and mixed Shia-Sunni areas, both in districts of Baghdad and in southern cities like Basra.    Even in the small town of Askan in the so-called "triangle of death" to the south of Baghdad - a mixed Sunni-Shia area - 20 people waited in line at each of several polling centres. More walked toward the polls."This is democracy," said an elderly woman in a black abaya, Karfia Abbasi, holding up a thumb stained with purple ink to prove she had voted.    There were still big pockets with little turnout, though. In Baghdad's mainly Sunni area of Azamiya, the neighbourhood's four polling stations did not open. In Baiji, a Sunni insurgent stronghold in northern Iraq, polling centres were all but deserted.    At a polling station in Tikrit, Saddam's, home town, only one voter arrived in the first few hours of opening.    January 29, 2005    "Iraq: An Election like No Other", by Paul McGeough. (The Age)    In tomorrow's attempt at national elections, the Shiites of Iraq are poised to become the first of their creed to take control of any of the modern Arab nations - after more than 80 years of subjugation by a Sunni minority.    The shift is as momentous as it is precarious - just how the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds of northern Iraq accommodate each other in the coming months will determine whether Washington gets the democratic beachhead it wants in the Middle East, or a religious, tribal and ethnic conflagration engulfs the region.    Washington needs a circuit-breaker in a costly mess of its own making. After stumbling into Iraq, confident it had all the answers, it is now desperate to train an Iraqi military it hopes will relieve it of a thankless task before it is deserted by public opinion and political backers.    Fifteen million Iraqis are eligible to vote and, despite the mayhem of a ferocious insurgency, the authorities in Baghdad and Washington are determined that the poll go ahead. They acknowledge as much as half the electorate will boycott or be too scared to vote, but a delay was a victory that neither would concede to the gunmen and the bombers.    This election, the Americans pray, has to be Iraq's turning point. But we've been here before - remember the "she'll-be-right" hype when the statue of Saddam Hussein came down almost two years ago? George Bush's absurd "mission accomplished" dance on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln less than a month later? The arrest of Saddam in December 2003? And the return of sovereignty to a puppet Iraqi entity seven months back?    It's no surprise that Bush seemed uncertain, stung even, when he was questioned on Wednesday about the death of 36 American troops - America's deadliest day in Iraq.    But it is the Iraqis, with all the weight of their painful history, who will be left to salvage a nation. The exuberant confidence of the parties is matched only by the fear of voters who will literally risk their lives to get to the ballot box.    In the midst of mayhem, accurate opinion polling is impossible. It is often assumed by Western observers that a conservative new Iraqi National Assembly will elect a deeply religious government and that the Washington-appointed tough man, Iyad Allawi, will be dislodged from the prime ministership.    But, anecdotally at least, the secular Allawi seems to have positioned himself well to take advantage of incumbency and he will be helped by any failure of the Shiite religious parties to hold together their diverse coalition in the post-election scramble for power. The biggest challenge to Allawi comes from a fragile group of Shiite religious parties cobbled together in December by the spiritual leader of the Shiites, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, when it seemed that party differences would scatter the religious vote.    Nominally, Sistani is not a part of the political process, but he has wielded inordinate power in directing it since the US invasion. Shiites form 60 per cent of Iraq's population, but political power has historically been held by the Sunni minority, and the Shiites were particularly oppressed during Saddam's rule.    The lack of security severely restricts media movement around Baghdad. But at meetings in homes and offices this week, Shiites who might have been expected to cast a religious vote and Sunnis who ordinarily would oppose all that Allawi stands for said they would vote for his secular ticket.    As a Shiite mechanic who was too scared to be named says: "I'll be voting for Allawi. He's strong - he worked with Saddam, so he knows our ways and customs and how to control the Iraqi people."    The same sentiment was expressed by Sunni voters, who said they would be defying insurgency demands for a boycott, demands that are backed by some of the Sunni political, tribal and religious leaders.    Over tea and sweet pastries in the winter sun in his garden in suburban Hibna, a depressed former Iraqi general who is a Sunni speaks admiringly of the leadership skills of the Sunni Saddam and the Shiite Allawi: "One was a dictator and the other is a democrat, but both know how to control this country; they know about centring power in one man - Iraq needs that toughness."    Another Sunni, the 32-year-old garment trader Basim Lutfi, damns the Americans and Allawi for the chaos and insecurity of post-invasion Baghdad, but he too intends to vote for Ticket 285 - Allawi's.    On a stormy Sunday afternoon, another blackout meant that the glow of a kerosene heater was the only light in Lutfi's sitting room. Initially he was leery about voting - "my country is occupied; security is bad". But gradually he came around: "If the Sistani list gets up, the insurgency will be worse and his people will want to do a deal with Iran. So I'll vote Allawi."    Jawad al-Mahar al-Faisal is a Shiite tribal sheikh who lives along a flooded and rutted track in semi-rural Medina, just past a machine-gun nest and opposite a spread of market gardens. He sits cross-legged on red floor cushions, wearing traditional dress - a black-and-white keffiyeh, or headdress, and a blackish-blue dishdasha - as he talks on the phone and smokes a hookah. There is an empty space on the window sill - the sheikh has removed a picture of himself with Allawi, because too many of his visitors would be offended by the company he keeps.    Sheikh Jawad works his way around the country: "Only two of the 111 tickets count: Sistani's and Allawi's. Most of the south will go with Sistani and he will get a big majority in Sadr City (a Shiite slum area of 2 million people in Baghdad); much of the rest of Baghdad is more secular and it looks to Allawi, but nationally the Sistani ticket will do better than Allawi's." And the sheikh and his tribe - how is he telling them to vote? "I tell them Allawi, because he is the man to create a good future for Iraq, but they won't listen -most of them want the Sistani list."    This is a Baghdad snapshot that seems to pitch the election as a referendum on whether the next Iraqi government is to be secular or religious in character, just as it indicates that Allawi's hard man act strikes a chord with Iraqis at a time when the Shiite religious parties are confidently predicting that Allawi's job is guaranteed to go to one of their nominees.    The Shiites are aware of the pitfalls. They have been here before. In the 1920s, it was the Shiites who rebelled against a British occupation and when London proposed an election which it rigged, it was the Shiites who boycotted, allowing the minority Sunnis to make a lunge for power that held until Saddam was ousted.    In the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Shiite religious leadership adopted the same position as today's Sunnis and the insurgency, decreeing that its followers abstain from voting because Iraq was occupied by an infidel foreign power.    Now, the country has a US-appointed Government and 170,000 US-led foreign forces are on the ground, but today's spiritual leader of the Shiites, Sistani, has issued a fatwa declaring voting to be a religious duty for Shiites.    And the crafty old man's refusal to speak against the use of his image as the campaign focus for a coalition of Shiite religious parties that he brought together and blessed as Ticket 169 has led many Shiites to believe that their duty extends to voting for that ticket.    But in the face of a credibility gap about the likely influence of the clergy on a Shiite-dominated government, the Iraqi Shiites' relationships with the Islamist regime in neighbouring Iran and the role of various Shiite militias in the new Iraq, the religious parties are sending out a new message - "no turbans in the government".    They make the point that all their likely candidates for the prime ministership are secular. But Mohammed Hussein al-Hakim, who speaks for his father, Mohammed Saeed al-Hakim, one of the top four ayatollahs in the holy city of Najaf, told The New York Times this week: "There will be (religious) monitoring of what the government does. We don't have it in our heads to be the only source of political influence on the new government but, yes, the religious authorities know the weight we carry in society. There will be counselling and directing from Najaf."    The white-turbaned Hamam Hamoudi is deputy leader of Hakim's Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is the biggest of the religious parties on the Sistani list. In an interview with The Age, he does little to conceal his dislike of Allawi, pointing out that the interim Prime Minister refused an invitation by Sistani to join Ticket 169.    Hamoudi argues: "If Allawi was allowed to continue his present line, Iraq would be destroyed - he admits to being from the Baathist school and he doesn't work well with others."    When Hamoudi warns that the lot of the next Iraqi prime minister will not be easy, he seems to be saying that Allawi is not a suitable candidate. "Before he adopts any position he will have to drink more than one cup of coffee. Taking the job will be a sacrifice, because his chances of success will be limited and so will his future career. Allawi doesn't like being tied down."    The Shiites fret that it is within the power of Allawi and others in the present Government to influence tomorrow's vote - either by providing too much or not enough security to allow Shiites to vote, or by the crude trick of stuffing ballot boxes in the absence of international observers who are too scared to come to Iraq.    The dapper Adel Abdul Mahdi is Finance Minister in the interim Government and the most likely Sistani ticket nominee for the prime ministership. He will not say if he is a candidate for high office, but he declares that the best Allawi can hope for after the election will be a ministry.    Then he makes a prediction: "There's not much support for him out there. If you say that our ticket will get 30 per cent of the vote, he'll still be a player if his ticket can get 15 per cent."    Despite the insurgency and the Sunni boycott, Abdul Mahdi estimates a 60 to 70 per cent Shiite turnout and a Sunni vote of as much as 30 to 50 per cent. But he insists: "Whatever the percentage we will have legitimacy - no one questioned the legitimacy of the 46 per cent turnout in this month's Palestinian vote.    "Any elected government is better than an appointed government and if there are a lot of bombings, we'll just have to accept the result and build on Sunday's outcome."    Whatever the split between secular and religious Shiites in the assembly, their most daunting challenge will be to convince the Sunni minority that they are not to be punished for the excesses of the Saddam years and that they will be secure in their new subordinate role in Iraq.    At the same time, the Shiites will have to field the demands of the independence-minded Kurds whose support they are likely to need for the vital two-thirds majority decisions of the new assembly. Apart from their own autonomy in the north, the Kurds are also demanding control of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk.    Adnan Pachachi, a patrician Sunni who was pipped by Allawi for the prime minister's job when two of the Shiite religious parties could not agree on a joint nominee for the post last year, is ignoring the boycott to head his own ticket tomorrow. But he is wary that disproportionate representation as a result of the Sunni boycott would undermine the legitimacy of the new 275-seat National Assembly. Pachachi is particularly troubled about the double-whammy of the insurgency and the boycott in Baghdad: "About 25 per cent of the population lives here and if the turnout is low, it's a big city that won't be represented. It will be a great tragedy if the country's elite and most of its educated and professional classes are not properly represented."    He cites agenda items that he claims have the potential to split some in the insurgency away from its hard core - the fate of thousands of suspected Sunni insurgents who have been detained without trial; the fate of high-ranking former Baathists who want a role in society; and, most controversially for many Iraqis, the timing of a US withdrawal. Pachachi concludes: "Some of these can be met - it's worth addressing them."    The Sunnis who are boycotting the election are regularly and roundly condemned in Baghdad and Washington. Iraq's interim Interior Minister, the Sunni Falah al-Naqib, warned last week: "Boycotting means betrayal - if the National Assembly does not represent all Iraqis, we will enter civil war."    But on Wednesday, Iyad al-Samarai, deputy leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, congratulated himself and his Sunni colleagues on the cleverness of their politics of abstention. Predicting an 80 per cent Sunni boycott, he warned against Shiite ambition: "They say they don't want (religious) turbans in the government, but you can't avoid the turbans standing behind the government."    And like most of the Shiite talking heads, he too spoke inclusively: "People have to be brought back into the process to go to the next election in six months and to draft the new constitution and to have good feelings for the future instead of the bitterness they feel now. "We didn't want to boycott the poll, but it was the right decision. We have been able to create such pressure that others are being more sensible now - we'd have had to face extremists telling us they were the majority and we'd have to accept whatever they were prepared to give us and there was nothing we could do about it."    The greatest challenge facing the new assembly is addressing the wildly differing demands of key sections of the community in the drafting of a permanent constitution which is to be voted on by the end of the year. When the current interim document was drafted, Washington insisted on a protective clause for the anxious Kurds which confers a right to reject the permanent constitution on a majority of voters in any three provinces.    At the time, there was no suggestion that the Sunnis might sideline themselves from the political process, but now they have. They, like the Kurds, have a majority in three provinces and therefore the power to kill the new constitution.    There will be no miracle tomorrow. Even if the insurgency were to hold its fire, some of the hoariest old chestnuts of Iraqi politics must be addressed in the coming months. Few of the mostly anonymous party lists that have been cobbled together for the poll are expected to hold together and the insurgency - and the US-led forces - will not be packing up any time soon.    There was not even polite applause when Allawi claimed during the campaign that "the elections will play a big role in calming the situation". And whoever is prime minister will be answerable to the new assembly - so Allawi's cosy relationship with Washington is over. There will be early demands for the Americans to go, and hanging over Iraq will be the threat of civil war.
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