Iraq defies bombs to hold election lottery

By Claudia Parsons

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraqi election officials defied a new
upsurge of violence and held a televised lottery on Tuesday to
determine the order in which more than 200 parties will appear
on ballot papers at December 15 elections.

In the run-up to the elections to choose the first full
four-year parliament since the fall of Saddam Hussein, parties
were hoping for a low number in the ballot, which would put
their name near the top of the list, or something distinctive
that would catch the attention of voters.

The highly theatrical public display of election
transparency in the new Iraq came a day after a car bomb killed
20 people and wounded dozens more in its southern heartland.

A Basra city official said five police officers were among
the dead in Monday night’s blast, which came as the U.S.
military recorded its bloodiest month in Iraq since early this
year.

The military announced on Tuesday another U.S. soldier had
died on Monday, taking the October death toll to 94, the
highest in a single month since January, when 107 died. Only
three months have been costlier since the invasion. The total
number of Americans killed in Iraq passed the 2,000 mark last
week.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned at the
weekend of an increase in bloodshed before the parliamentary
election in December, despite hopes that a decision by Sunni
leaders not to repeat their January boycott of the poll may
deprive insurgents of support within Saddam’s once dominant
minority.

Washington, which still has 160,000 troops in Iraq, is
hoping the election will herald a new era of stability and
democracy so it can reduce its presence.

Nonetheless, in a sign that Iraq’s leaders see a further
need for U.S. protection until their own troops are trained,
the government asked the U.N. Security Council to renew the
mandate of the U.S.-led forces for another year after January
1.

ELECTION COMPLEXITIES

With 18 different ballot papers for 18 different provinces,
preparations for the vote are complicated. Time is short
because the process did not start until the results of October
15′s constitutional referendum were known.

In a televised spectacle that had the air of a game show,
officials allocated numbers to the 225 parties and coalitions
that registered for the ballot, starting from 501 — in order
to avoid repeating numbers used at the last election that
voters might already associate with parties.

With so many parties running, memorable numbers are highly
prized so certain numbers like 600 and 700 were not used.

The ruling United Alliance, which won nearly half the votes
at January elections, struck lucky with the number 555.

Besides practical issues, the election faces disruption
from an insurgency that shows little sign of let-up, with
roadside bombs and shootings reported on a daily basis.

Monday’s blast came when Basra’s bustling Algiers Street
area was packed with festive crowds visiting restaurants and
enjoying the cool of one of the last evenings of the holy month
of Ramadan. Several buildings and vehicles were devastated and
rescue workers picked body parts from the street.

Deep in the majority Shi’ite heartland, the Gulf coast city
has been spared much of the violence Sunni Arab insurgents have
inflicted further north. There has been tension among rival
Shi’ite militias, however, and the election may fuel tensions.

EID CELEBRATIONS

The three-day Eid holiday later this week will also be a
tense time as crowds gather to celebrate the end of Ramadan,
offering an easy target if insurgents choose to attack.

In a goodwill gesture for Eid, 500 prisoners were released
from Abu Ghraib jail on Tuesday after being presented with a
Koran and $25. The U.S. military said they were freed after
their cases went before an Iraqi-led review board and they were
found not to have committed serious or violent crimes.

“These detainees have confessed to their crimes, renounced
violence and pledged to be good citizens of Iraq,” the U.S.
military said in a statement.

Over 13,000 more prisoners are behind bars in Abu Ghraib
and around Iraq, including several hundred foreign fighters.

Washington says the Sunni Arab insurgency is swollen by
those small numbers of foreign fighters from Arab countries and
U.S. forces have launched extensive operations in western Iraq
in an attempt to keep the militants out of the country.

The Iraqi government said on Tuesday that a Moroccan
militant wanted in connection with bombings in Casablanca in
2003 had been linked to three simultaneous car bombings in the
Iraqi town of Balad that killed more than 100 people in
September.

“Mohsen Khayber, aka Abdul Rahim, a Moroccan-born
extremist, is a terrorist wanted by Moroccan authorities,” the
Iraqi government said in a statement, offering an unspecified
financial reward for information leading to his arrest.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Paul Tait, Ahmed
Rashid, Hiba Moussa in Baghdad)