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Secular and sunnis lose in flawed elections { January 20 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/international/middleeast/20iraq.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/20/international/middleeast/20iraq.html
January 20, 2006
Iraqi Voting Found to Be Flawed but Mostly Fair; Sunnis Are Skeptical
By ROBERT F. WORTH
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 19 - Experts who were asked to investigate allegations of fraud in Iraq's elections in December released a positive report on Thursday, concluding that the vote was flawed but declining to endorse calls for new elections.
The report came as Iraqis braced for the expected release of the election results on Friday, an event that is likely to be met with a surge of insurgent attacks, American military officials say.
The report, by the International Mission for Iraqi Elections, a monitoring group based in Jordan, noted that some vote-rigging had been documented, and added that "some additional fraud in all probability went undetected, although its exact extent is impossible to determine under current circumstances." But the panel generally praised the election as an impressive exercise of democracy under difficult conditions.
Sunni Arab and secular politicians, whose accusations prompted the investigation, expressed disappointment about the report, which was released via e-mail.
"It's a bit contradictory: they mention a number of violations, but they come up with a conclusion that this is an achievement," said Mehdi al-Hafedh, a candidate in the National List, a secular slate led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. "From our point of view, they didn't give enough attention to the negative aspects."
The report was released hours after a suicide bomber wearing an explosive belt walked into a crowded Baghdad coffee shop that is popular with police officers and blew himself up, the first of two explosions on the same street on Thursday that left 15 people dead and 46 wounded.
Five minutes after the first blast, a car bomb exploded on the street outside, just as emergency vehicles were starting to arrive. The attackers appeared to have been aiming at a police patrol that was parked outside the shop, where some of the officers were eating. But only three of the dead and almost none of those injured were officers, Interior Ministry officials said.
The double bombing, in a crowded area full of open markets just off Sadoun Street, shattered windows and facades on most of a city block, leaving shrapnel and human remains scattered on the sidewalks. The blasts destroyed five cars that were parked on the street, including a police vehicle.
An hour after the attack, the blackened hulks of the cars remained on the street alongside the skeletal metal remains of the car that had contained the bomb. Nearby, police officers in blue camouflage uniforms sobbed openly, banging their fists on the hoods of their patrol cars, and they barred reporters from coming closer.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Insurgents have made it clear that Iraq's new police force is one of their chief targets, and they have often struck at cafes and restaurants where officers gather, including one especially gruesome attack in Baghdad two months ago that killed 29 people.
The attacks on Thursday came a day after the bodies of 36 Iraqis were discovered in two villages north of Baghdad; all of them had been shot. The pattern of violence has been uneven since the December elections, with a burst of deadly attacks in early January followed by a lull, and a rise in the past few days.
The release of the election results on Friday is likely to prompt a surge in insurgent attacks, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for the American command, said at a news conference on Thursday.
Some Sunni Arab insurgent groups abstained from attacks during the December elections, apparently in the hope that an unhindered vote would allow more Sunni Arab representation in the new Parliament. But early returns have suggested that the main Shiite political alliance dominated the vote, as it did in last January's elections.
If the preliminary results confirm or deepen that trend, some Sunni insurgents are likely to respond violently. Other insurgents, notably the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have made it clear that they aim to destabilize the new government no matter what its makeup.
"Zarqawi still has a significant capability to surge, and conduct acts of violence," General Lynch said. "We expect he'll do the same thing around the time election results are released."
Mr. Zarqawi's willingness to attack civilians has led to some skirmishes between his network and Iraqi resistance fighters. Over the past few days, two tribal sheiks and a cleric from the insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, have been killed in what may have been an extension of that conflict.
At least two of the men had taken part in a meeting on Sunday with Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari where, it was widely rumored, they discussed an agreement to help fight Mr. Zarqawi's group, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. American and Iraqi officials said they were not aware of any such discussions.
"The Jaafari visit is the reason behind the killings of those two sheiks," said Hamid Turki al-Showka, another sheik from a Ramadi tribe, who lives in Baghdad.
Sheik Turki identified the three murdered men as Nasir Abdul Karim al-Mukhlif of the Bufahad tribe, who was killed Monday; Abdul Ghafar al-Rawi, an imam who was killed Tuesday; and Muhammad Sadagh al-Shlebawi.
On Thursday, Mary Beth Carroll, the mother of a kidnapped American journalist, Jill Carroll, appealed for her daughter's release, appearing on the CNN program "American Morning" to say the kidnappers had "picked the wrong person." The journalist, 28, was abducted in western Baghdad on Jan. 7. She appeared in a videotape released Tuesday by Al Jazeera television that said the kidnappers had threatened to kill her if all women held in American custody in Iraq were not released by Friday.
Pentagon officials said they were not aware of any plans to release any women, The Associated Press reported. A detention review board of Iraqis and Americans recommended the release of six Iraqi women earlier this week, but Iraqi officials said that decision was not related to the kidnappers' demand.
Khalid al-Ansary and Sabrina Tavernise contributed reporting for this article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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