Coalitions Reject Election Results

Coalitions Reject Election Results

*Inter Press Service*
Dahr Jamail and Arkan Hamed
*
BAGHDAD, Dec 30 (IPS) - Many Iraqis are demanding a new poll after more
than 1,500 cases of election fraud and forgery were reported in the Dec.
15 elections, at least 30 of them "extremely serious".*

The results so far indicate a strong win for Shia religious groups.
There are widespread complaints that many of the instances of fraud
favoured Shia religious groups that led the interim government which
conducted the poll.

In Baghdad, the most important district in the poll with more than a
fifth of the seats in parliament, the Iranian-backed Shia alliance took
a surprising 57 percent of the vote, as opposed to 19 percent for the
Sunni coalition.

With final election results expected next week, the number of cases of
fraud constituting the largest fraud in a new democracy to date led to
at least 42 Sunni and secular Shia political parties demanding a review
of complaints by an independent international body.

Many complaints relate to false ballot box stuffing and intimidation of
voters.

After the United Nations rejected a review, the coalition of Sunni and
secular Shia parties, al-Maram, issued a joint statement threatening to
boycott the new legislature. Large demonstrations are continuing across
Iraq.

Tens of thousands of worshippers who support al-Maram gathered at a
Sunni mosque in Baghdad Tuesday this week. The Imam called for a protest
demonstration after busloads of people from across the capital city
arrived to attend his sermon.

"Please God remove the invaders from Iraq with the hands of the
mujahideen," he said. "And honourable prayers, we call for you to deny
the elections, which were a fraud.."

He appealed against any domination of Iraq that would separate Sunnis
from Shias. "Iraqis don't support separation of their citizens," the
Imam said. "My tribe (al-Jabouri) is both Sunni and Shia. We are all
cousins and are not separated by these elections."

Concern is rising among these groups over Iranian domination. "We ask
almighty God to save us from being under the control of the Iranians,"
45-year-old Baghdad resident Nadham al-Doury told IPS. Al-Douri who
joined thousands of others in a march after the sermon said the election
results would be forged, and that the current leaders of Iraq were
"fascists".

Some banners at the rally read, 'Yes to Real Nomination...No to False
Nomination' and 'We are Calling for Re-Elections'. Demonstrators in the
mile-long procession chanted slogans like 'Baghdad Will Be Free...Iran
Should Stay Out' and 'They are Playing with a Flame Which Must Burn Them'.

With the main Shia coalition rejecting calls for another poll, tensions
across Iraq are rising.

Many parties are asking for the Independent Higher Commission for
Elections in Iraq (IHCEI) to be replaced with a new commission whose
members have no ties with the parties in power. Some Sunni and secular
Shia political parties have renamed the IHCEI the 'Independent Higher
Commission for the Islamic Revolution' that is biased towards the
dominant Shia party, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Demonstrations began Dec. 22, a week after the elections. Countless
mosques across Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq called for demonstrations
against widespread fraud. Tens of thousands came out to protest in the
days following.

"I have won my seat in the parliament, but we don't accept it," Salaeh
Al-Mutlak, head of the secular National Dialogue Front told IPS. "The
elections should be cancelled because they were not legitimate."

Sheikh Mahmoud al-Sumaidaei, spokesman for the influential Sunni
Association of Muslim Scholars, told followers, "You have to be ready
during these hard times, and combat forgeries and lies for the sake of
Islam." The elections, he said, were "a conspiracy built on lies and
forgery."

Arabs are disputing the results also in Kirkuk in Kurdistan to the
north. They say Kurdish parties brought in voters from other areas to
vote for them.

The United States and Britain, who wanted the election to install a
secular, pro-Western democracy in Iraq, are now left with what looks
more and more like a pro-Iranian, anti-Western Islamic state.


(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.

It's on Dahr Jamail's website at
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000341.php#more

but it was sent to me from his list

sorry about that

Why is the UN coming out and saying the vote stands? Who's side are they on.

But that made choke and laugh and almost throw up all at the same time :rofl: :puke:

Only the big difference is, they had hundreds of thousands of protestors in the street after their election. When we met up in Ohio to demand a recount, we got less than a thousand....

Many <insert Democratic voters> are demanding a new poll after more
than <insert number here> cases of election fraud and forgery were reported...

There are widespread complaints that many of the instances of fraud
favoured <insert GOP candidate here>...

Yep, Bush imported "democracy," all right: American democracy.

What they exported was BushPutinism. They really ARE soulmates.

They are each using VERY similar plans to end freedom in their respective nations.

Russian Democracy was in it's infancy, very weak, and not yet cemented by centuries of tradition. It is already almost 100% put in it's grave, I would think (but cannot know for sure, of course).

Old American Democracy was middle-aged, at least, strong and flush with our twin victories over totalitarian states that threatened the world...Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. We had centuries of tradition to keep our inertia strong for liberty.\

Therefore, we get to enjoy some more years of good life, before we become as BushPutinist as Russia is today. And, hopefully for future generations, at least American Totalitarianism MAY be "kinder and gentler" than Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union (hoo-ray....)

rigged elections and all!