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Iraqi Sunni Leader Al-Mutlaq on Election Fraud Allegations, Urges UN Action

Posted on: Thursday, 22 December 2005, 18:00 CST

Text of interview with Salih al-Mutlaq, leader of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, in Baghdad, by Al-Jazeera presenter Hasan Jammul in the Doha studios, broadcast live by Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite TV on 22 December

[Jammul] Dr Salih al-Mutlaq, [Sunni] leader of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, joins us from Baghdad. Dr Salih, why did you notice the forgery only after the initial results were issued, given that opposing sides lauded the elections during the casting of votes and immediately after the elections ended?

[Al-Mutlaq] The fact is that the information is incorrect because we started to have doubts about the integrity of the elections before they were held because of the propaganda campaign and oppression, killing and terrorism that some political entities went through. We said that it was impossible that the elections proceed in such a manner. The political entities and their representatives must be protected from the killings, oppression and terrorism that took place.

During the elections, we also indicated many times to the Independent Higher Commission for Elections in Iraq [IHCEI] that there were many cases of forgery. We called the IHCEI on the day of the elections more than once. On one issue, we called it more than four times and told it that there were no ballots in the cities, but they informed us that they sent enough ballots. However, it seemed that the representatives of some political entities deprived voters of these ballots. When the voters went to their families, they had to come back to fill these ballots in favour of the political entities they are affiliated with.

In fact, the IHCEI shoulders the responsibility for most of these mistakes as it appointed representatives for parties in the entities and political entities within the IHCEI. This gave them the opportunity to tamper with the elections as they like.

[Jammul] When I told you that some of the opposing sides lauded the elections today, I will not say that all sides did so. One of these sides, which lauded the elections, is the Conference of the People of Iraq, led by [Sunni] Adnan al-Dulaymi [head of the Iraqi Accord Front], as we noticed in the news during the voting.

Now, what will happen if they do not meet your request to cancel the results of the elections?

[Al-Mutlaq] We have several measures. First of all, we will contact all sides in the international community responsible for this process. We will also hold contacts with the parties inside. My dear brother, we think that if these elections are approved with their current results, these elections are not in the interest of anyone, even the winners. Also, we are part of the winners of these elections. However, we think that the loser is the country and subsequently we will all be losers. The losers are the Iraqi people and we are part of the Iraqi people so we will be losers. Even those who won with a higher percentage than we did will be losers because the main goal of all these political entities is supposed to be to bring about security and welfare for Iraqis and create an objective National Assembly that the Iraqi people can trust. The Iraqi people are now depressed and despair prevails among them through the substantial cases of forgery, which they saw themselves. Therefore, it is not possible for the Iraqi people to trust such an assembly. In addition, it is difficult for us to be false witnesses in an assembly based on fraud.

What happened in these elections is an abominable matter which harmed democracy in general in the four corners of the world and not just in Iraq. I can say that the flaws and violations of the democratic process in these elections in Iraq are unprecedented in modern history all over the world.

There are more than 1,200 basic violations of the electoral process according to what was registered. And also many cases were not registered. What is important is what the Iraqi citizen sees in this democracy. Does he see it as a true political process? This is a basic issue. The Iraqis are now depressed and it seems to me that they will start staging demonstrations as of tomorrow. We want that the matters to be within these limits so that there will be no chaos in the street. We are putting the street under control as much as we can, but we have limits and we demand that the United Nations immediately intervene to stop these elections [indistinct word].

Source: BBC Monitoring Middle East

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