• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Iraq defies bombs to hold election lottery

Posted on: Tuesday, 1 November 2005, 11:22 CST

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)

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category