IRAQ: Iraqis react to election result delay

Record ID: 327592

  • Title: IRAQ: Iraqis react to election result delay
  • Date: 15th March 2010
  • Summary: HEADLINE OF AS-SABAH NEWSPAPER READING: "Electoral Commission: the heavy duty is the reason behind the delay of announcement of election results"
  • Embargoed: 30th March 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAENXOCZ5DEVP7DXM3RXEWWY411
  • Story Text: Iraqis said on Sunday (March 14) that the vote counting and sorting process should be a transparent and speedy one, stressing the necessity of using technology to avoid delay in announcing the results of parliamentary elections.
    "The counting and sorting process should be more transparent and more speedy in order to give full information to the people. There should be no delay (in announcing the results). This process should be dealt with by a high tech mechanism, being adapted from European and Arab countries who practised such operations. We can say that our people are in the mid road as they should follow high tech procedures in counting and sorting process," said one Baghdad resident, Abu Mohammed, days after Iraq's pivotal parliamentary election was held on March 7.
    Another, Ali al-Mawlawi, said the form of Iraq's parliamentary poll was responsible for any delay in announcing the final result.
    "Actually, I have participated in monitoring the election with the international teams. Thank God, what I saw in Baghdad was very good. I hope the counting and sorting process will be fast, but with the new procedure, the open list, the process will take a long time."
    In early results from Baghdad announced on Saturday, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki held a wide lead, the major prize in a tight election race that Iraqis hope will bring stability after years of sectarian conflict.
    But partial results from 11 of Iraq's 18 provinces, representing only a small fraction of the vote, showed a contest too close to call six days after the March 7 polls and suggested weeks or months of horse-trading ahead to form a government.
    Maliki's State of Law coalition is leading among three top rivals as electoral officials slowly release initial figures.
    A cross-sectarian, secularist list headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is running second, and the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a rival to Maliki among Iraq's Shi'ite majority, is a close third.
    Politicians promised the parliamentary election would bring better governance and security as the United States prepares to end combat operations seven years after ousting Saddam Hussein.
    For his part, Media Officer of Independent High Electoral Commission Hussein al-Taei said that the counting and sorting process will be finished in the next two days.
    "We hope to finish all the counting and sorting process in the coming two days and then inserting the data in the database of the national centre," he told Reuters.
    The stakes are high. After 2005 polls, sectarian violence erupted as politicians took months to form a government.
    As IHEC struggles to fend off criticism about the delay in early results, it is also grappling with a new, complicated voting system, a slow computer grid, intense media scrutiny and even infighting among election officials.
    No vote tallies had been released so far for Basra, an important swing area among Shi'ite competitors.
    While the Baghdad results lent some clarity to the political landscape, charges of fraud may yet scramble the picture.
    Iraqiya has charged that ballots were dumped in the garbage, nearly a quarter of a million soldiers were denied voting rights and electoral commission workers fiddled with vote counts.
    The election result is being watched closely in Washington. The Obama administration plans to halve U.S. troop strength in Iraq in the next few months, formally ending combat operations by Sept. 1 ahead of a full withdrawal by the end of 2011.
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