Election Monitors’ Report Increases Doubts Over Fairness of Iraq Election

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Source: Times Online

Independent election monitors in Iraq have raised significant concerns over the conduct and fairness of last week’s national poll.

A high-level Iraqi report obtained by The Times details violations across the country and includes evidence of the army and police interfering directly with voting on March 7. Based on testimony compiled by three non-governmental agencies, the report says that in some Iraqi provinces “security forces were urging people to vote for a specific list”.

Election monitors also observed “the presence of a number of security forces even within the voting hall, which sometimes hindered the movement of voters and confused them about ensuring privacy in the voting”.

The report, which was circulated among Western officials in Baghdad this weekend, will add to the impression that Iraq’s second full parliamentary poll was not free and fair. A number of parties have made allegations of major fraud, although foreign diplomats say that at least some allegations are partisan attempts to discredit the poll by those likely to lose.

The independent report detailing widespread irregularities was compiled by the Tammuz Organisation for Social Development, the Election Integrity Monitoring Team and Shams Network for Monitoring Elections. All three are Iraqi institutions with Western backing. They posted observers at 41,652 of the 52,000 polling stations.

A spokeswoman for Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission said: “This report shows some weak points. These are things that can happen in any electoral process. The commissioners will try to avoid them in future.”

Among the most serious problems highlighted are inadequate or fraudulent electoral rolls. Observers reported “the absence of the names of thousands of voters, despite the fact that a large number of names were registered in the previous elections. This includes displaced voters and employees of the security forces”.

Supporters of Ayad Allawi, the former Prime Minister, alleged last week that up to 250,000 members of the armed forces had been unable to vote or may have been prevented from doing so.

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