Thread: Archive News - Iraqi Dinar Think Tank - 01/10/09 - 27/03/10

Changed fortunes of divisive figure

Two years ago, Nouri al-Maliki, pictured, was a dour Iraqi prime minister, widely derided as a weak leader presiding over a corrupt government and a country in chaos, writes Andrew England. Today, however, he is seeking another term in power and is one of the frontrunners in the general election.

His changing fortunes can be traced to a gamble he took in March 2008. Then he staked his credibility on a bold military offensive against the militias loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr, a fellow Shia, in the southern city of Basra. Operation Charge of the Knights got off to an inglorious start, with some Iraqi troops refusing to fight and others joining the militias. But after the crucial intervention of the US and Britain, Mr Maliki managed to claim success against the militias and establish his own authority.

Since then, he has touted himself as a nationalist and claimed credit for improving security in the past 18 months. Mr Maliki, 59, dominates the State of Law coalition that is among the favourites in tomorrow's poll.

When he first took office in April 2006, Mr Maliki was a little-known politician selected as a compromise candidate to end the squabbling within a Shia Islamist coalition divided between the Islamic Supreme Council in Iraq and the Sadrist movement.

Today, however, his Dawa party has been buoyed by its period in government and control of state resources, so much so that it refused to join an alliance between the ISCI and the Sadrists, ensuring Mr Maliki remained its candidate for the premiership.

His standing was further boosted by Dawa's success at provincial elections last year, when the party's coalition emerged as clear winner after campaigning on a platform of security, nationalism and strong central government. That appealed to voters frustrated by the religious parties that took office in 2005, even though Dawa itself has its roots as a Shia Islamist movement. The other Shia parties have now adopted similar rhetoric.

But some see him as a divisive figure who has concentrated power around the prime minister's office and had poor relations with Syria and Kuwait. Many Sunnis view him with suspicion and doubt whether he is genuinely committed to a non-sectarian state.

By Andrew England in Baghdad

http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidFT...ged%20Fortunes

Meaningful indicators on the eve of parliamentary elections

We can say that the seventh of March witnessed the most important day in Iraqi political life since the launch in 2010. It contains millions of Iraqis head to the polls to elect their representatives. A process that there is a near consensus that the results will decide the fate of Iraqis and their country for the next four years, at least if we defeated the account spillover effects beyond that. And documented that those who will this role in the lives of Iraqis arrived in positions of responsibility in ways that are legitimate through the ballot box, spread thousands of Iraqi and international observers throughout the country to oversee what is happening at the polling stations and counting.

Radio Free Iraq met with Stephen Mandan observer deputed by the European Union monitors in a team to follow up the conduct of the elections, he stressed that the observers and agents of political parties were very well attended at the polling stations:

"There is quite an influential presence in the polling stations. In all the polling stations we visited there, and agents of the main political parties that have representatives there."

Contributed to several countries to send observers encouraged by the marked improvement in the security situation. The member of the Independent Electoral Commission Karim al-Tamimi to the participation of observers from the European Union and the United Nations and the United States, Canada, Australia and the Organization of Islamic Conference and the Arab League. Al-Tamimi said that there are more than three hundred and fifty teams, accompanied by international observers to protect and translators.

The other safety valve against any irregularities or attempts to tamper with ballot papers, voters are agents of rival political parties that monitor each other through their representatives. Electoral regimes allow each party to send observers to polling stations and vote counting. What is said in election monitoring in the home right on the elections abroad, which have massed battalions of Arab and international observers and local election official also announced overseas in the Independent Electoral Commission Iyad Kanani.

Election started out on the fifth of March to continue until the VII. Was conducted and accepted by the special ballot to members of the armed forces, patients in hospitals and medical staff and prisoners. She summarized the President of the electorate in the election commission Hamdiya Husseini, the outcome of the vote of the figures, noting that the turnout was less than sixty percent of those eligible to vote in the special ballot. After the end of the balloting for the elections and the launching of the outside inside stage penetrated the media silence to prohibit any propaganda campaign during the twenty-four hours before Iraqis go to the polls. And civil society organizations play a distinct role in controlling the commitment of parties and coalitions competing base electoral silence.

Radio Free Iraq met with the spokesman for the network to allow control of the Iraqi elections known by its acronym "Sail", speaking about the role of civil society organizations during the period of electoral silence through the control of political entities and media outlets to make sure a break from the practice of any election propaganda. The spokesman Sgt network has allowed the role of the network is not limited to monitoring the violations that occur on the day of election silence but to follow the actions of the Independent Electoral Commission of any measures against the authorities of the violation. A spokesman for the network censor to allow the monitoring of violations in the Day of Silence include in particular the electoral officials, regardless of the levels, including members of the legislature and the Prime Minister, who may engage in election campaigning under the guise of official position.

With civil society organizations to monitor the commitment of ministers, MPs, candidates, election silence day the security services have the task of monitoring is to protect the largest of all, observers and candidates and voters, and to ensure security on polling day. In the light of past experience and the tangible improvements in security police officer hopes to contribute to Abu Imad ensure a successful election, God willing.

Around fifty people were killed during the last days of the campaign and a car bomb exploded today in the city of Najaf, killing explosion that killed civilians, including Iranian visitors. And vowed branch of al Qaeda, which calls itself the Islamic State in Iraq to target all those involved in the elections. But the answer to the threat of this group did not come from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, but the citizen Ahmed Malik, who stressed his determination to go to the electoral center in its region.

A ban on the movement of vehicles on polling day. Will be closed for Iraqi airspace and ports and maritime transport between the provinces. He urged the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon Iraqis to go to the polls on Sunday, describing the elections as another important milestone in Iraq's political evolution.

http://www.iraqhurr.org/content/article/1976392.html

The fate of the oil contracts determined by the Iraqi elections

We often hear economists and officials admit that oil revenues constitute 95% of the budget of the Iraqi state. This percentage means that the oil pay the salaries of all staff and all members of the armed forces and security agencies and other funded development projects. In a move aimed to develop oil and gas sector and increase revenues and Iraqi government signed a number of contracts with international companies to develop giant oil fields.

The effects of the signing of this contract the huge controversy and speculation of a possible cancellation after the formation of the parliament that will emerge from Sunday's election, when millions of Iraqis head to the polls.

Chairman of the Commission on oil and gas in the House of Representatives Ali Hussein, described the Blue in an interview with Radio Free Iraq oil contracts as illegal, Ramya football stadium solution in the next parliament.

Of the most important contracts signed by the government at the start of 2010 the contract for the development of the giant Majnoon field in southern Iraq. It will be the development of this field Royal Dech, the largest oil company in Europe, and Malaysia's Petronas.

And on the potential termination of the contract after Sunday's elections said the ****utive Director of Shell in the Middle East and South Asia Mounir Bouaziz in an interview for Radio Free Iraq that the validity of the government, and wondered about the reasons for cancellation, especially as the contract with Shell will bring significant investment to Iraq and a greater return when production begins.

Tarek Harb legal expert warned in an interview with Radio Free Iraq Iraq tied to the possibility of financial burdens in the event of the new parliament decided to cancel the contracts signed by the current government, given that such contracts provide for the penal provisions in case of amendment and cancellation.

The Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani announced that the anticipated output of the contracts signed by his ministry more than eleven million barrels per day in the coming years to become Iraq's biggest oil-exporting countries in the world.

http://www.iraqhurr.org/content/article/1976388.html

About 150 thousand Iraqis take part in elections abroad during the past two days

One member of the Commission Karim al-Tamimi, the proportion of voters went to polling stations across Iraq were high, pointing at a press conference for members of the Commission that the reports of global and local organizations confirmed that there is no rigging in the elections.

In turn, Al Saad, Member of the Office of the narrator that all polling stations opened their doors to voters despite the security incidents that led to disable stations open for some time.

To that, he drew a member of the committee supervising the elections abroad Iyad Kinani to the participation of about 150 thousand Iraqis in the elections that took place abroad during the past two days, announcing the receipt of the Committee for more than 175 complaints in this regard.

The political and popular among the expressed fears that the lack of participation of voters after sporadic bombings in the capital Baghdad and other provinces.

http://www.radiosawa.com/arabic_news...2191855&cid=24

Obama praises Iraq elections

President Barack Obama paid tribute to the “courage” of Iraqis who “defied threats to advance their democracy” by voting Sunday in Iraq’s second general election since the 2003 invasion.

“I congratulate the people of Iraq for casting their ballots in this important parliamentary election,” Obama said in his first reaction to the crucial vote.

Iraqis defied waves of bomb, mortar and rocket attacks that killed 38 people to turn out in huge numbers to vote in elections seen as a test of the war-shattered state’s fragile democracy.

“I have great respect for the millions of Iraqis who refused to be deterred by acts of violence, and who exercised their right to vote today,” Obama added in a statement.

“Their participation demonstrates that the Iraqi people have chosen to shape their future through the political process.”

The president also commended the Iraqi government and security forces for providing security at tens of thousands of voting booths and polling stations across the war-torn nation.

“We mourn the tragic loss of life today, and honor the courage and resilience of the Iraqi people who once again defied threats to advance their democracy,” he said.

http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=128201

IHEC says results outside it would be incorrect

Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) said on Sunday that any results of the parliamentary elections that are to be announced from any other organizations or officials would be “incorrect.”

“Any mass media that would announce the results of today’s parliamentary elections would not be correct,” the IHEC was quoted by al-Iraqiya TV.

“The IHEC is the sole organization that will announce the correct results of Iraq’s legislative elections,” it added.

http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=128190

Iraqis defy deadly bomb attacks to vote

Iraqis on Sunday braved waves of bomb, mortar and rocket attacks that killed 24 people to vote in parliamentary elections that Al-Qaeda vowed to wreck. Baghdad bore the brunt of the violence, with dozens of mortars raining down on the capital as voting stations opened for the war-shattered nation's second parliamentary election since US-led forces ousted dictator Saddam Hussein. Fallujah, Baquba, Samarra and other cities across the country were also hit by mortar rounds or bombs, many of them exploding near polling stations.

But the capital saw the deadliest attacks. A Katyusha rocket flattened a residential building, killing 12 and wounding 10, officials said, adding that a second blast killed four and wounded eight when another building was targeted by a bomb, security officials said. Four more people were killed by mortar attacks in Baghdad and four others by bombs that between them wounded 40, the officials said. The attacks come despite a massive security operation in place for Sunday's voting, with 200,000 police and soldiers deployed in Baghdad alone.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said the attacks "are only noise to impress voters but Iraqis are a people who love challenges and you will see that this will not damage their morale." Maliki cast his vote in Baghdad's fortified "Green Zone" which earlier Sunday took several mortar hits.

Abu Adel, a 57-year-old retired man, was one of the tens of thousands across the country who queued up at polling stations to cast their votes despite the danger.

"It is a duty to participate in the democratic process," he said as he voted at the Omar al-Mokhtar polling centre in central Baghdad.

Sunni Arabs are expected to turn out in force at voting centres, in stark contrast to 2005 when they boycotted nationwide polls in protest at the rise to power of the nation's long-oppressed Shiite majority. That boycott deepened the sectarian divide and heightened unrest which killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in the aftermath of the 2003 US-led invasion and which has only eased in the past two years.

The election will usher in a government tasked with tackling a multitude of problems, including still high levels of violence, an economy in tatters and state ministries mired in a culture of endemic corruption. Seven years after the war, much of Baghdad remains bomb damaged, most homes receive only a few hours of mains electricity a day and lack clean drinking water, and a quarter of the Iraqi population is illiterate. Northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, which is almost free of violent attacks and whose economy is booming, is one of the country's few bright spots.

Iraq has vast oil deposits and in recent months has signed 10 massive deals with foreign companies, but income will take years to flow into government coffers and for the moment much of the population remains poor. The United States hopes the election will bolster Iraq's fledgling democracy, make it a beacon in a region where free and fair elections are the exception, and pave the way to a smooth pullout of American troops.

Maliki, the Shiite head of the State of Law Alliance, is bidding to become the first Iraqi voted back into office at the will of the people who for decades had no choice but Saddam's Baath Party. His rivals include Iyad Allawi, a Shiite former prime minister who heads the Iraqiya list, a rival secular coalition that has strong support in Sunni areas. Also seeking the top job are Ahmed Chalabi, a former deputy premier once favoured but now loathed by Washington; Adel Abdel Mahdi, the country's Shiite vice president; and Baqer Jaber Solagh, the finance minister. Chalabi, Mahdi and Solagh all represent the Iraq National Alliance, the main Shiite religious list. Under the Iraqi electoral system no one party will emerge with the 163 seats needed to form a government on their own and the ensuing horse-trading to form a governing coalition could take months.

So far, 4,380 American soldiers have died since the invasion, according to an AFP tally based on the independent website icasualties.org. Iraq Body Count, a Britain-based group, estimates that between 95,000 and 104,000 civilians were killed in the same period. Although violence is at a post-invasion low, attacks occur almost daily in Baghdad and other hotspots. More than 350 people died in unrest last month.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq in a statement on Friday threatened to kill voters, days after a series of suicide attacks and bombings killed dozens. The Islamic State of Iraq, the Qaeda front in the country, said it was imposing a "curfew" on Sunday and anyone who dared defy it would "expose himself to the anger of Allah and ... all kinds of weapons of the mujahedeen."

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...ks%20to%20vote

Talabani says asked to be Iraq president again

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said Sunday after casting his ballot in the country's general election that he had been asked by several blocs to continue on in the post.

"I have been asked by many many Iraqi groups and lists to re-candidate myself," he told reporters in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, 270 kilometres (170 miles) north of Baghdad.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...sident%20again

Kurds vote timidly for change in Iraq president's bastion

Asked who he will be voting for, Ibrahim Abdullah Hassan looks left and right to check if anyone is listening, leans forward and whispers, Goran -- Iraqi Kurdistan's upstart opposition. The city of Sulaimaniyah where Hassan is casting his vote in Iraq's general election has long been a bastion of the Patrotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the former rebel faction of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. But Goran, whose name means Change in Kurdish, is challenging its long grip on power with a list of candidates made up largely of PUK defectors. The 42-year-old mechanic's reticence about revealing who he is voting for is fuelled by a series of clashes between Goran supporters and those of the PUK in the run-up to polling day on Sunday. As recently as Friday, five people were wounded in a gunfight between supporters of the two parties.

"They (the PUK) have done nothing for me," said Hassan, a qualified mechanic who has struggled to find work in his chosen field since he graduated in 1991.

"Our money has been misused by the main parties," he says quietly as he queues outside the classroom-turned-polling station to cast his ballot.

"Most of my friends want to vote for Goran also -- 98 percent of them want more transparency and openness here."

Goran is hoping to take the majority of Sulaimaniyah province's 17 seats in the Iraqi parliament and push the PUK into an embarrassing third place among Kurdish parties.

The other main former rebel faction -- the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of regional president Massud Barzani, which has its strongholds in Arbil and Dohuk provinces further north -- is widely expected to win the most seats of any Kurdish party. There have been no credible opinion polls in the region, however, so it remains impossible to predict how each party will fare. PUK supporters are highly visible and have no qualms about declaring their allegiance to a party which fought successive Baghdad governments for more than four decades and played a key role in the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

"We were victims of the previous regime -- our village was attacked," says, Sardar Ahmed Hassan, 35, as he queues to vote alongside his mother, who is dressed in a head-to-toe black abaya.

"I had to vote for the PUK," he adds, as he recounts how he found refuge in Sulaimaniyah after fleeing ethnically-mixed Nineveh province to the northwest.

Shadan Omer Mohammed, a 36-year-old housewife, says she voted for the PUK as she had seen a great deal of reconstruction in her neighbourhood of Sulaimaniyah.

"There has been lots of change -- they have been successful and defended Kurdish rights," she adds, dressed in bright green traditional Kurdish clothes, a common sight on polling day in the region.

Goran confounded expectations by winning 23.57 percent of the vote in elections to the autonomous Kurdish region's parliament in July standing on an anti-corruption platform. Sunday was the first time it had contested an Iraq-wide election. The party's breakthrough last year means that for the first time Kurdish voters have a realistic alternative to the long dominant alliance of the PUK and KDP, which were again standing on a joint ticket in Sunday's election.

"Life has been the same the past four years, I'm voting for a better alternative for the Kurds," says Arham Saeed, 25. "I am voting for the group that will be productive, and loyal to the Kurds." Pressed further, the labourer replies: "I am voting for Goran."

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...%27s%20bastion

Polls close in Iraq vote: electoral commission

Polls closed at 5 pm (1400 GMT) on Sunday as scheduled, after an Iraqi parliamentary contest rocked by dozens of mortar and bomb attacks that killed 38 people, a senior election official said.

http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm/sidAN...l%20commission