Despite problems, group praises Iraq vote
(AP)
Updated: 2006-01-20 08:46

An international assessment team on Thursday cited numerous violations and cases of fraud in Iraq's Dec. 15 parliamentary elections, but it did not question the final results.

The International Mission for Iraqi Elections, a 10-nation monitoring body led by Canada, recommended changes for future elections but made no call for repeating any voting from the December parliamentary vote.

The release of the mission's report opens the way for the announcement of the results, which was delayed amid complaints by some Sunni Arab leaders about fraud allegations. Shiite Muslim parties are believed to have preserved their majority in the parliament, though they will likely have to forge a coalition government.

Iraq invited the mission to review the voting after Sunni protests. The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, which oversaw the vote, said Tuesday that it would release final results after the mission's report.

Haidar al-Obadi, a senior official in the Dawa Party of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said the report "confirms the fairness of the elections. ... There are irregularities in elections anywhere in the world, but the irregularities that occurred in our election were individual violations and individual violations will not have any effect."

But Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq, an outspoken election critic, expressed disappointment with the report.

"The report is contradictory in certain sections," al-Mutlaq told The Associated Press. "It says there were irregularities, but then says that (the Iraqi election) commission was not prepared for this kind of a job. ... It calls for the annulment of the disputed seats but does not call for re-election. At the same time, it doesn't quantify the extent of the damage caused by these irregularities."

The mission report was cautious in assessing the impact that the instances of fraud had on the outcome. It said the IECI voided results from 227 of the total 30,000 ballot boxes after investigating the most serious reports of fraud. It said it was "regrettable" to void the boxes without holding a new vote in those areas.

It said election officials received about 2,000 complaints alleging ballot box stuffing and theft, tally sheet tampering, intimidation, violence, incorrect voter lists, ballot shortages, multiple voting, improper police and military conduct, campaigning within polling centers and violations of a pre-election ban on campaigning.

"Some additional fraud in all probability went undetected, although its exact extent is impossible to determine. ... Beyond the problems already discussed, the team did not receive definitive evidence of other significant shortcomings in the conduct of the elections," it said.

The mission gave no overall assessment on the integrity of the final results, but said the elections' legal framework, institutions, and procedures were "designed to meet international standards."

Problems aside, the mission said Iraqis should be commended for an election that operated smoothly under harsh circumstances.

"Despite these conditions, the people of Iraq have voted in numbers that would do credit to democracies in more settled parts of the world," the report stated.

"In a country where at the moment few, if any, governmental institutions can operate with consistent efficiency and effectiveness in all areas of the country, the IECI succeeded in giving the vast majority of Iraqis an opportunity to vote. That, in itself, is an accomplishment," it said.

The vote was also more broadly representative of the Iraq's ethnic and religious groups than previous elections, and candidates were able to campaign in the face of serious violence, including assassinations of candidates and supporters.

More than 120,000 Iraqi observers and 800 international monitors watched the vote, enhancing the transparency of the elections, the mission said.

Iraq's electoral commission investigated and resolved the most serious complaints, dismissing staff members or levying fines on those blamed for violations, the report said. Some violators were referred for criminal prosecution.

Some of Iraq's 220,000 election workers were among those blamed for violating their code of conduct with "questionable or illegal practices," and some Iraqi security forces voted on election day after casting ballots on an earlier day set aside for them, the report said.

But the IECI did not have the means to investigate all complaints and did not probe "a large number."

Among other problems cited by the international mission:

- Political parties were not allowed to receive copies of polling station tally sheets that recorded the vote count.

- Some areas had inadequate numbers of polling centers and too few voting sites.

- Some centers experienced a shortage of ballots or problems with voters' lists, which were based on a government food ration list.

- No legal deadlines have been set for the announcement of preliminary or final results or for the resolution of complaints.