Iraq Votes – Part V

By MEMRI Staff

The Iraqi general elections took place on March 7. The Elections Commission which administers the elections process and is responsible for counting the ballots initially announced that it would provide preliminary data on the elections on March 10. Amidst complaints of fraud by a number of rival political groups, the Elections Commission suddenly offered preliminary numbers of partial counting of ballots in eight of Iraq's 18 provinces, in addition to the city of Kirkuk.

The table below provides a quick review of the preliminary and partial results in the eight provinces, as offered by the Elections Commission:

INITIAL ELECTION RESULTS IN EIGHT PROVINCES

Province	No. of Seats in Parliament	Maliki	Hakim	Allawi	Barazani	Others
Najaf	12	1st	2nd	3rd
Babil	16	1st	2nd	3rd
Karbala	10	1st	2nd	3rd
Salah al-Din	12	1st		2nd		3rd
Dyala	13		2nd	1st		3rd
Anbar	14			1st		2nd
Ninawa	31			1st	3rd	2nd
Erbil	14				1st	2nd

Concerns about fraud were also expressed by Straun Stevenson, the president of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Iraq. In a press release, Stevenson wrote: "There have been suspicious delays in announcing the elections results in Iraq, amid fears that extensive efforts are underway to distort the real outcome of the poll."[1]

In defending the delay in reporting the election results, a spokeswoman for the Commission said in an Al-Fayyad TV interview on March 11 that additional time was required to count the "special election votes," namely those of security personnel, hospital staff and prisoners who were allowed to cast their ballots two days ahead of the general elections as well as the ballots of Iraqis in 16 other countries. The spokeswoman also said the Commission was investigating in excess of 400 complaints about voting issues.

What riled many critics is the sudden appearance of Ahmad Chalabi, from the Iraqi National Alliance, a predominantly Shi'ite coalition with close ties to Iran, in the Commission's central offices accompanied by another candidate. Another unwelcome guest at the Commission was Haydar Al-Abadi, from the slate of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, State of Law, who was allegedly seen tampering with the computers. [2]

One cannot ignore the fact that the claims of fraud may have to do with explaining the failure of parties and individuals to be elected. As we pointed out in "Iraqis Go to the Polls," there are on average 19 candidates for every seat in parliament, an excessive number of candidates by any measure. Obviously, there can be only one candidate who would be elected while the remaining 18 candidates will have to swallow their pride. What better explanation there is to explain one's failure than to claim fraud.

This is not to suggest that there has been no fraud, given that quite a large number of voters may be illiterate and easily manipulated. But we also suspect that given that only about 5% of the candidates for elections will eventually reach parliament, there will be a lot of frustration among the remaining 95%, some of whom are likely to feel cheated in the process.

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