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08 February 2005

Iraqi Commission Studies Election Irregularities

Independent body seeks to ensure that results are credible

By David Shelby
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington – The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) is studying carefully every report of vote fraud and administrative irregularities connected to the January 30 national elections in order to ensure that the result is credible.

"We are doing everything to announce a credible result for this historic election," said IECI spokesman Farid Ayar during a February 8 press conference from Baghdad.

Ayar said that the commission has identified one case of fraud involving several voting centers in villages in Ninewah province, around the northern city of Mosul.  After the IECI sent ballot boxes and ballot papers to the polling centers, armed militiamen took the materials, filled the boxes with votes for their chosen political entity and then returned the boxes to the polling centers to be processed.

Ayar said that the militants offered money to the elections officials to ensure that the ballots were counted, but the officials refused the bribes and set the boxes aside to be handled by the elections commission.

Representatives from the IECI traveled to Mosul to inspect the boxes and determined that approximately 50 had been filled fraudulently.  The commission intends to cancel the results of all the boxes in question.

"We will not accept any fraud in any ballot box," Ayar affirmed.

Ayar said the IECI is also investigating an administrative irregularity concerning three or four polling stations in Kirkuk.  He said the polling results were enclosed in a paper envelope rather than an official nylon envelope.  For the time being, however, the commission does not suspect that this was a case of deliberate fraud.

"We are trying to find every detail, every small thing.  We are checking everything.  That's why the result is a little bit delayed, because we have to inform the people and the result should be very clear and very perfect," Ayar said.

The IECI expects to announce the results of the election next week.  After the announcement, candidates will have three days to challenge the results and ask for a recount.  At the end of the three-day challenge period, the IECI will certify the results, and the members of the national and provincial assemblies will be named.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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