Mammoth task of counting votes begins (Baghdad)
Electoral officials estimate 60% turnout as polling stations sift and collate two sets of election results.
Election worker Bairaq Salam Kadhim knows the task of counting votes will be an exacting job that will require long hours of work. But he says he doesnt mind because he is so happy that the first democratic elections in Iraq in decades were a success.
I dont feel tired because the sense of joy is overcoming my fatigue, said Kadhim, who works at polling station number 7 in Baghdad. What were doing is for those people who sacrificed and martyred themselves for the sake of Iraq, and who did not live to see elections.
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At a press conference on 31 January, the day after the elections, officials with the Independent Election Commission of Iraq (IECI) said initial turnout figures indicated that about 8 million went to the polls, which works out at about 60% of those eligible to vote. Commission spokesman Farid Ayar said most of Iraqs 18 governorates had already sent their counted votes to Baghdad, where the final tabulation will take place.
Ayar said that on the basis of initial reports, the vote had been generally fair and transparent and there were no indications of widespread fraud, although the commission was still waiting for reports to be submitted by local election workers and political parties.
In his first press conference after the election, interim prime minister Iyad Allawi said, The terrorists know they cant win.
He spoke of a new era of history in which Iraqis must work together.
Preliminary results could be announced 48 hours after the election, but it will take up to ten days for official results to be finalised. 200 election workers will do the final count in Baghdad.
Half an hour after the polls closed, Kadhim and his colleagues at polling station number 7 began the first sorting of ballot papers. Votes were separated according to which of the two elections they were for the Iraqi National Assembly or the local governorate council and according to the candidate selected.
Of the 1,900 voters this polling station was designed to handle, 1,300 actually came to cast a ballot.
To ensure transparency, the sorting and separating process was videotaped and was also supervised by volunteer election monitors, said Qasim al-Janabi, the polling-station manager.
The work requires accuracy and attentiveness, as the responsibility for correct separation lies with us, said Kadhim. We also have to separate out the spoiled ballot papers, such as those that contain votes for more than one party, or have been left unmarked.
Ballots cast for the same coalition or party were collected in piles of 25, labelled and put into boxes. The whole process lasted five hours, and then the boxes and the accompanying tallies were sent off to Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) headquarters.
The sorting process went smoothly, said al-Janabi. But the fact that some entities (listed candidates) got only a few, less than twenty-five, votes caused some confusion when they were put into separate parcels.
Kurdish ballot rigging row (Sulaimaniya)
Parties in Iraqi Kurdistan accuse each other of election fraud.
Kurdish parties, including the two main political groups, are accusing each other of ballot violations in the wake of their first democratic elections in decades.
The two main Kurdish parties the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) have been trading barbs since the polls opened on 30 January.
The Kurdistan Democratic Islamic Union and the independent Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party also joined the fray.
The PUK, KDP and the Kurdistan Democratic Islamic Union came together to form the Kurdish Alliance List coalition to run in the elections for the 275-member transitional National Assembly. But for local elections, including a new 111-member Kurdish parliament, the parties each campaigned separately.
Aso Ali, head of the PUKs Sulaimaniya branch, said that at some polling stations voters were encouraged to vote for a certain party, which he declined to name.
There have been [electoral] violations in Arbil, but we dont want to make the process ugly by talking about it, Ali said.
Arbil is the regional capital of the KDP-controlled area of Iraqi Kurdistan in the west, while Sulaimaniya is the capital of the eastern part controlled by the PUK.
Arif Taifoor, a senior KDP official in Sulaimaniya, said the KDP will be holding a meeting with other parties about voter fraud, but the PUK will not be invited. He also blamed the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI), saying: They did not support us, and we have a word to say about their representatives.
A senior official of the electoral commission office in Sulaimaniya, who declined to be named, said the commission received complaints from parties all the way through election day.
We followed up the breaches and some were true and some were untrue, the election official said. But we dont have any tangible evidence and there is no smoke without fire. There might be some fraud, but how much, we dont know.
Jabar Mahmood, a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Solution Party, said his party was aware of many breaches and they intended to submit a document detailing the violations to the electoral commission office.
There were blank votes in the ballot box that were later marked in favour of the ruling party or for the Kurdish Alliance List, he said.
Mahmood admitted his party also committed fraud, as one of their party election observers offered to turn a blind eye to violations by other parties in exchange for three votes for his party.
The Sulaimaniya electoral commission official also criticised the PUK and KDP for announcing preliminary results of the election in some cities of Iraqi Kurdistan.
We havent announced any official statements, he said. Only the IECI in Baghdad is allowed to announce results officially.
Despite the accusations by the Kurdish parties, one independent election monitor in Sulaimaniya said voting was a success.
There were no breaches from any party, said Rizgar Mahmood Ali. The process went very well.
Karbala elderly make special effort (Karbala)
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistanis call for Shia to vote brought out many of the old and frail.
Election officials reported a very high turnout in this Shia city south of Baghdad, with many of the areas elderly population leaving their homes to vote.
About 90% of registered voters came to the polls on 30 January, said Safa al-Mussawi, head of the electoral commission office in Karbala. He also said there were minor irregularities but the overall election went smoothly without any major incidents.
Barakat Muhamad, an election monitor at the Abu al-Shuhada polling station in the Hai al-Amil neighborhood, said he noticed that more women had voted than men. According to election law, 25% of the 275-member transitional National Assembly have to be women.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistanis call to Shia to vote in the elections brought out many of the elderly.
Jafar Hashim Sakir, 43, escorted his 85-year-old father to the polls. It took them one hour to reach the nearest polling station, about one kilometre away, because they constantly had to stop so his father could take a rest.
He insisted on participating in the election, Sakir said. This is the first time my father has left his home since the fall of Saddam in April 2003.
Wassila Hassans daughter pushed her in a wheelchair for a few kilometres so she could vote. Hassan, who is 69 and paralysed, said she believes her vote will be a direct blow to Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is blamed for much of the violence in Iraq.
She added that her husband was killed and three of her sons were imprisoned because of her husbands affiliation with the Islamic Dawa Party, which Saddam Hussein banned.
We lost our life under suppression, torture and poverty, so we want to elect a government that can provide security and prosperity, Hassan said. And I dont want history to repeat itself.
Can they cut off 8 million fingers? (Baquba)
Insurgents shoot off voters ink-stained fingers in Baquba.
Masked gunmen in the northeastern town of Baquba shot off the fingers of at least four Shia voters after they went to the polls in Iraqs historic elections.
After the polling stations had closed at 5pm on 30 January, the insurgents set up makeshift checkpoints around the city to look for people marked with indelible ink on their index finger a sign that they had voted.
Najm al-Firaiji, a 21-year-old student, said that he was targeted while standing with a friend outside his house in the al-Suwamra neighborhood in the citys New Baquba area, about two and a half hours after polls closed.
Four masked men approached and asked whether anyone in the neighbourhood had gone out to vote.
Al-Firaijis friend ran off, and the student told the man he didnt think anyone had been to the polls.
But then one of the men pointed a pistol at his head and told him to show them his finger. It bore the telltale purple ink stain, and one of the gunmen shot it off.
I hadnt intended to vote but my friends persuaded me, saying there was a possibility that things would get better, said al-Firaiji.
Will they be able to cut off the fingers of 8 million people?
Iraqs electoral commission estimates that 8 million out of the 14 million people eligible to vote about 60% cast a ballot on election day.
Al-Firaiji and three other victims of similar attacks were treated in Baqubas hospital.
Despite explosions and attacks on polling stations in Baquba and the rest of Diyala governorate northeast of Baghdad, turnout here was high at around the national average, an election official in the province told IWPR.
Most were Kurds or Shia Arabs, the official said.
I am 66 years old and this is the first time Ive voted, said a beaming Hadi Abdul Hussein.
Attacks continued after polls closed in Baquba.
Militants open fired on election workers and security officials transporting ballot boxes from a polling station located at the al-Batra primary school. Iraqi police reportedly fled the scene, but United States troops moved in and managed to stop the insurgents stealing the boxes.
This article is a compilation of recent reports from Iraq published by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR)
The IWPR works to strengthen local journalism in areas of conflict. By training reporters, facilitating dialogue and providing reliable information, it supports peace, democracy and development in societies undergoing crisis and change.
