http://www.washtimes.com/upi-b...50113-090851-6896r.htm
Watching Good Morning America (I think it was, anyway) yesterday morning, there was a news segment that some major cities in Iraq have had zero preparations so far for the election being held in two weeks.
This is sure going to boost confidence in the average Iraqi to go vote. :roll:Washington, DC, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- International observers are likely to be conspicuously absent at Iraq elections on Jan. 30 because of the security situation, and the task of monitoring the voting will be left to some 5,000 specially trained Iraqi electoral officials. The U.N.-sponsored International Mission for the Iraq Elections says it will follow developments from a safe distance in Amman, Jordan and Canada.
Observers played a significant role in recent elections in Ukraine, the West Bank and Gaza, and Afghanistan. But contrary to usual practice, the Iraq group "has no mission of observation, and will control the elections without necessarily going to the country (Iraq)," said the head of the IMIE, Jean-Pierre Kingsley, who is Canada's election commissioner. But he said that, depending on the security situation during the elections, "a small team of volunteers could be deployed, working in areas considered to be safe, and with heavy protection."
Kingsley said he is thinking of only "six, seven, 12 people being situated in the Middle East and Iraq." In other respects, the IMIE will primarily be Toronto-based. Drawing on international election experts, it will follow last-minute preparations in the run-up to the vote. The United States is not a participant in the International Mission because the group consists of national electoral boards, and there is no such U.S. organization. The member countries that will provide experts are Albania, Yemen, Panama, Mexico, Indonesia, Britain and Canada.
But international scrutiny to ensure fair play and no election irregularities may be secondary considerations in Iraq where insurgents have threatened to kill any voter who goes to the polls.
A Middle East expert in Washington predicted Jan. 30 "is going to be a bloody day in Iraq, no doubt about that." Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Wednesday that in some parts of the country, lack of security could make it impossible for people to vote. "Certainly there will be some pockets that will not be able to participate in the elections for these reasons, but we think it will not be widespread," Allawi said at a press conference in Baghdad.
The same point -- that voter turnout could be light and patchy -- was made Wednesday by a White House official. The source, unnamed in press reports, said people should not "focus on numbers, which in themselves don't have any meaning." What mattered, the source said, was "the outcome" and "the government that will be the product of these elections." Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House Speaker, observed on television that in the 1864 U.S. presidential elections, only half the country voted because America was divided by the Civil War.
An official with the United Nations, which played a key role in organizing the Iraqi elections, said the Bush administration was lowering public expectations "so it could claim success when the numbers came in strong." The U.N. picture from the field is less grim. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said the latest reports from Baghdad predicted a high voter turnout among the Shiite Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the population and among the Kurds (20 percent), but very low among the Sunnis (20 percent to 25 percent) who have lost the political power that they held in the Saddam Hussein regime. Shiite leaders have been urging their followers to go to the polls and vote for their community's unified slate.
The official said polling places in potential trouble spots will be heavily protected by coalition and Iraqi forces, particularly in the so-called Sunni triangle, south of Baghdad.
Violence was expected to continue in the next two weeks as insurgents intensify their campaign to undermine the vote. But the official pointed out that large areas of the country were relatively stable, and little disruption was expected.
More than 30,000 polling places have been set up throughout the country. This is a higher number than would normally be necessary, but the aim is to reduce the length of waiting time in lines, when voters would be most vulnerable to insurgent attack.
One remarkable element in the elections has been the determination of the Iraqi Election Board. It has continued to function steadily despite the danger to its members. Earlier this month, four election workers were taken out of their car and shot by insurgents in a busy Baghdad street, and there have been some resignations. But Kingsley said that in teleconferences from Baghdad, the board's chairman, Hussain Hindawi, has assured him that the elections will take place on time and in as orderly fashion as is humanly possible.
At the same time, earlier concerns that a boycott of the vote by the Sunni Muslim minority would produce an unbalanced result are now being shrugged off both by the Bush administration and U.N. officials. "Election boycotts have happened in other countries," the U.N. official said.
Watching Good Morning America (I think it was, anyway) yesterday morning, there was a news segment that some major cities in Iraq have had zero preparations so far for the election being held in two weeks.
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