ChaldoAssyrian Christians Shut Out of Iraq Elections

[expatriot]

http://www.aina.org/news/20050213193558.htm

ChaldoAssyrian Christians Shut Out of Iraq Elections

With an Iraq population estimated at over 700,000 people, ChaldoAssyrian Christians would have been expected to win 10 seats in Iraq's 275 seat National Assembly. That would have matched the 3% share of the Iraqi population that ChaldoAssyrians now enjoy. But that is not what happened.

With a little over 30,000 votes needed to seat one candidate, the main ChaldoAssyrian slate, the Rafidain National List #204, received just 36,255 votes, enough to seat only one candidate, Yonadam Kanna. The one other major Assyrian slate, the Assyrian National Coalition list #139, received just 7,119 votes.

While four ChaldoAssyrians on the Kurdish list #130 did make it into the Assembly with the list getting 2.1 million votes, Yonadam Kanna will be the only person involved with drafting Iraq's Constitution that owes his election directly to the ChaldoAssyrian community.

It's that Constitution that ChaldoAssyrian Christians hope will grant rights, freedoms and protections including the freedom to practice their religion, some form of autonomy in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, and protection from persecution.

But when only 93 of 330 polling stations opened on Election Day in the Nineveh province, which is home to a large percentage of the ChaldoAssyrian Christian population, hopes for meaningful participation faded. Not even protests around the world could help force a remedy to the disenfranchisement felt by the community.

Those ChaldoAssyrians on the Kurdish list #130 that won an Assembly seat are Goriel Mineso Khamis, Salim Potros Elias, Abd al-Ahad Afram and Jacklin Qosin Zomaya.

8.5 million Iraqis voted in the elections which overall is a victory for the Iraqi people, but for the ChaldoAssyrian community, that victory is bitter sweet.