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12 January 2005

January 30 Election Seen "Historic Moment" for Iraq, Whole Region

Senior U.S. officials call any delay "tactical victory" for insurgents

Washington -– A delay in holding Iraq’s January 30 elections would deviate from the timeline agreed to by Iraqi representatives in the country’s March 2004 Transitional Administrative Law (TAL) and would hand Iraqi insurgents a “tactical victory,” according to senior Bush administration officials.

Speaking on background January 12, the two senior administration officials said most of the Iraqi people, including the Sunni community, are “very enthused” about the upcoming elections, which they said represent a “historic moment” both for the country and the region as a whole as Iraqis elect a Transitional National Assembly.

“Our assessment is that this election will be a step forward for Iraq.  … This is not an appointed body, it’s not an appointed government, but an elected one, and this government will have the legitimacy to tackle Iraq’s problems,” one of the officials said.

Asked about the possibility of a delay due to instability in some sections of the country, one official said the TAL, which the official described as “essentially an interim constitution,” mandated that the election be held no later than January 31. “The more that we can stick to all of the agreements among Iraqis that are embodied in the TAL, the better,” the official said, adding that the timeline has also been endorsed as part of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1546.

The officials acknowledged that Iraqis are voting “under unusual circumstances,” given the threats of violence and disruption by some groups within the country.  The debate on whether to participate or not is due to intimidation, they said, and not “for a lack of desire.”

All Iraqi communities, including Sunnis, have shown a “great receptivity” to having the election, the officials said.  However, threats have been made to polling places, some individuals are “afraid of what may happen in their neighborhood when they return from the vote,” and elections officials and facilities have been threatened in an effort to discourage voting, they said.

“[T]hose people who go and cast their vote really have to be admired as being courageous and being patriots,” one official said. The officials said there is no guarantee that the security situation in the country will improve and that a delay would give the insurgents “at least a tactical victory.”

“[T]hat means that you may look at a security situation that is even worse than the one certain people will face," one official said.

In response to the security threat, Iraqis living in four provinces with higher security risks will be allowed to vote outside their province, and there will also be a “more active coalition component” in those provinces, the officials said.

The January 30 election will select the members of a 275-person Transitional National Assembly, or parliament, charged with selecting a Presidential Council, consisting of a new president and two vice presidents, as well as drafting the country’s new constitution.

The Presidency Council will pick a prime minister who will then assemble a Cabinet, subject to approval by the majority of the Assembly.

More than 14 million Iraqis are registered, the officials said, and when they go to the polls January 30, they will choose from 111 political entities, such as coalitions or slates.  The officials described the system as “single district proportional representation,” which was decided upon by the United Nations and the Iraqi Electoral Council in May 2004.

There are more than 19,000 candidates running for the assembly, the officials said. When the final results are tallied, the overall votes for a coalition list will determine the number of seats the coalition will have in the council.  The final results are expected by February 15, the officials said.

According to the senior administration officials, some coalition lists are multi-ethnic and multisectarian, including Sunni candidates, which would provide Sunni representation in the assembly even if there is a low turnout by Sunni voters.  Some Sunnis are “highly placed” on some of the lists, the officials said. The aim, they said, is to list individuals on the slate who have both broad national appeal and appeal to certain localities.

Asked why the single district system is being used instead of dividing the country into separate districts, the officials said the plan is viewed as “the most friendly system to Iraq’s minorities,” especially given the lack of time before the election and the lack of a recent census in the country.

None of the communities, including the majority Shi'as, have any interest in having the new government being seen as illegitimate, they added.

“There seems to be a strong awareness across the political class in Iraq in all groups of the need for the Sunnis to feel comfortable that they have a role and say in the institutions of the new Iraq,” one of the officials said.

The officials said the elections “will not be perfect,” nor will they serve as a “magic bullet” to turn off the violence in the country, the officials said.  However, the Bush administration expects the process to “produce a government that is broadly representative of the Iraqi people," said one.

Expatriate Iraqis living in 14 countries will also be voting in the election, the officials said, including perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqis living in the United States.  Those individuals will cast their ballots in polling places set up in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington, and Nashville, Tennessee.

After the final results are announced February 15, an “intense round of negotiations” will ensue in the newly elected council on the formation of the next Iraqi government, the officials said, with the intent to have the new government, including a prime minister, in place by March 1.

For additional information on the upcoming Iraqi elections, go to “Iraq Elections: A Vote for Democracy” at: http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/middle_east_north_africa/iraq/Iraq_Elections_A_Vote_for_Democracy.html

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=January&x=20050112181757lsnamfuak0.7969171&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html