2008 Woodie Awards
First Iraqi election proceeds smoothly
Kyle West
Issue date: 2/11/05 Section: World
Thankfully, we don't live in fear of terrorist attacks during our upcoming Community Senate and Student Union elections, and we also won't hear about it on the nightly news. Yet the end results of these elections also will be far less visible than what many in Iraq are hoping for after going to the polls on Jan. 30.
"If all we have to do is mark a ballot paper to survive grenades, explosives, kidnapping and killing by terrorists, then so be it," Zakaria al-Ahmar told The New York Times. Al-Ahmar was one of only a few Sunni Arabs that voted in the Iraq elections, despite the boycott by Sunni clerics.
Nearly 36 percent of the votes have been counted as of Feb. 4, leaving the Shiite party United Alliance in the lead with 2.2 million votes of the already counted 3.3 million. The results came from ten of Iraq's 18 provinces where there is a strong Shia majority, according the BBC.
The United Alliance, backed by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, also garnered most of the absentee ballots, which came in from 14 countries, the Associated Press reported. The absentee ballots were handled by the International Organization for Migration.
Led by former expatriate Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the United Alliance maintains that although it has many clerics vying for office, it is not interested in instituting Islamic law, according to CNN.
Despite violence and opposition to the election by the insurgents, there was a high voter turnout on the Jan. 30 election. According to the BBC, Mosul amongst other cities had had a shortage of ballot papers. Election officials sent a team of investigators to Mosul to determine the problem.
"We received some complaints and the legal department in our commission is studying these complaints thoroughly," said Safwat Rashid, an election commission official, according to the BBC.
Many Sunni Muslims have complained that they were denied to vote in Mosul and elsewhere. The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni clerical organization, has called the elections "illegitimate", saying that "these elections lack legitimacy because a large segment of different sects, parties and currents with their influence in Iraq boycotted."
"If all we have to do is mark a ballot paper to survive grenades, explosives, kidnapping and killing by terrorists, then so be it," Zakaria al-Ahmar told The New York Times. Al-Ahmar was one of only a few Sunni Arabs that voted in the Iraq elections, despite the boycott by Sunni clerics.
Nearly 36 percent of the votes have been counted as of Feb. 4, leaving the Shiite party United Alliance in the lead with 2.2 million votes of the already counted 3.3 million. The results came from ten of Iraq's 18 provinces where there is a strong Shia majority, according the BBC.
The United Alliance, backed by Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani, also garnered most of the absentee ballots, which came in from 14 countries, the Associated Press reported. The absentee ballots were handled by the International Organization for Migration.
Led by former expatriate Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the United Alliance maintains that although it has many clerics vying for office, it is not interested in instituting Islamic law, according to CNN.
Despite violence and opposition to the election by the insurgents, there was a high voter turnout on the Jan. 30 election. According to the BBC, Mosul amongst other cities had had a shortage of ballot papers. Election officials sent a team of investigators to Mosul to determine the problem.
"We received some complaints and the legal department in our commission is studying these complaints thoroughly," said Safwat Rashid, an election commission official, according to the BBC.
Many Sunni Muslims have complained that they were denied to vote in Mosul and elsewhere. The Association of Muslim Scholars, a Sunni clerical organization, has called the elections "illegitimate", saying that "these elections lack legitimacy because a large segment of different sects, parties and currents with their influence in Iraq boycotted."
