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Shiite spiritual leader hails Iraq election
Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has congratulated Iraqis on turning out to vote and expressed regret he had been unable to take part himself because of his Iranian nationality.
The reclusive cleric, who rarely ventures from his home in the Shiite holy city of Najaf, relayed his message through his representative in the nearby shrine city of Karbala.
"Grand Ayatollah Sistani thanks the Iraqi people for going to vote," said Ayatollah Ahmed al-Safi.
Mr Sistani "has not headed to the polling centre himself because he does not have the right to vote," said Mr Safi, alluding to the Iranian-born cleric's foreign nationality.
The cleric, with a grey wispy beard, shepherded Iraq on the road to democracy, insisting on elections under the US-led occupation and engineering the front-running Shiite list, the United Iraqi Alliance, which is expected to win the biggest number of seats in the new national assembly.
The frail 73-year-old was born in the Iranian city of Mashhad.
At the age of five he started to learn the Koran and pursued his studies in the Iranian holy city of Qom before moving to Najaf in 1952.
He learned his religious trade from some of the most important Shiite masters, including Grand Ayatollah Abdul Qassem al-Khoei.
Mr Sistani became Grand Ayatollah when Mr Khoei died in 1992.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1292164.htm
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Some rode on donkey-carts. Others piled into buses laid on for voters. Most came on foot, steadying the elderly and pushing the disabled in wheelchairs to the ballot box.
Voters in Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf turned out in force on Sunday, many walking for kilometres through filthy streets, to cast their ballots in Iraq's first multi-party election in half a century.
"We walked seven kilometres. I left the house at seven this morning and just arrived," said Attiya Hammoud, a retired driver waiting to vote in the old city at 8:30 a.m. (0530 GMT).
"I am voting for the United Iraqi Alliance, list 169. God make them victorious."
The Shi'ite-led alliance, drawn up under the auspices of Iraq's most revered cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to dominate the poll, especially in Najaf, the spiritual home of Shi'ite Islam.
Sistani has issued an edict demanding the faithful vote in an election expected to cement the long-oppressed Shi'ite majority's growing political power.
In stark contrast to Sunni areas where attacks and intimidation scared off many voters, Shi'ites in Najaf embraced the poll wholeheartedly. Most said they chose list 169, whose campaign posters carry Sistani's image.
Some began trickling in as soon as the region's 240 polling centres opened at 7 a.m. By mid-morning queues of voters snaked around schools used as voting places, everyone holding their documents at the ready.
"It is a good feeling to experience democracy for the first time," said Isra Mohammed, a housewife in the black Islamic robe traditionally worn by women in southern Iraq.
"We voted for the United Iraqi Alliance, because it includes good people who will serve this country, God willing, after past rulers dealt us a great deal of harm."
Inside polling stations, electoral officials marked off voters' names on printed registers tens of pages thick, before handing them two ballot sheets, one for the national and one for provincial polls, to take into cardboard voting booths.
Voters placed the marked sheets in clear plastic ballot boxes, lids locked, and dipped a finger in indelible blue ink.
But illiteracy and confusion among voters, who under Saddam Hussein could vote only yes or no in polls, meant the ballot was not always secret and there were occasional minor abuses.
"I want the one with the candle for the national and 354 for the local," Talba Nazzal Jabbar told an electoral official, who marked her ballots on her behalf.
The candle is the symbol of the United Iraqi Alliance, but Jabbar did not check if the official ticked the right box.
"I came because the religious authority said so and I don't care if there are explosions. Islam comes first," she said.
Cars were banned from cities across Iraq on election day. In Najaf, Iraqi police and soldiers with assault rifles manned checkpoints every 500 metres on all main streets.
Polling centres were sealed by barbed wire, rocks and sometimes concrete blocks. Police watched from the rooftops.
Men and women, all clad in black robes, queued separately and were searched on their way in to vote. In the nearby Shi'ite town of Kufa polling centres also swarmed with voters.
"We had hoped our 75 election staff could vote first, but we have not had time as people were already arriving when we opened," said Mohammed al-Shathir, voting coordinator at al-Fawatem school. "We have over 2,600 voters registered here. Hundreds have already arrived."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DRHAVRS0I4CXICRBAEZSFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=7476186&pageNumber=1
"Grand Ayatollah Sistani thanks the Iraqi people for going to vote," said Ayatollah Ahmed al-Safi.
Mr Sistani "has not headed to the polling centre himself because he does not have the right to vote," said Mr Safi, alluding to the Iranian-born cleric's foreign nationality.
The cleric, with a grey wispy beard, shepherded Iraq on the road to democracy, insisting on elections under the US-led occupation and engineering the front-running Shiite list, the United Iraqi Alliance, which is expected to win the biggest number of seats in the new national assembly.
The frail 73-year-old was born in the Iranian city of Mashhad.
At the age of five he started to learn the Koran and pursued his studies in the Iranian holy city of Qom before moving to Najaf in 1952.
He learned his religious trade from some of the most important Shiite masters, including Grand Ayatollah Abdul Qassem al-Khoei.
Mr Sistani became Grand Ayatollah when Mr Khoei died in 1992.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200501/s1292164.htm
NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) - Some rode on donkey-carts. Others piled into buses laid on for voters. Most came on foot, steadying the elderly and pushing the disabled in wheelchairs to the ballot box.
Voters in Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Najaf turned out in force on Sunday, many walking for kilometres through filthy streets, to cast their ballots in Iraq's first multi-party election in half a century.
"We walked seven kilometres. I left the house at seven this morning and just arrived," said Attiya Hammoud, a retired driver waiting to vote in the old city at 8:30 a.m. (0530 GMT).
"I am voting for the United Iraqi Alliance, list 169. God make them victorious."
The Shi'ite-led alliance, drawn up under the auspices of Iraq's most revered cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is expected to dominate the poll, especially in Najaf, the spiritual home of Shi'ite Islam.
Sistani has issued an edict demanding the faithful vote in an election expected to cement the long-oppressed Shi'ite majority's growing political power.
In stark contrast to Sunni areas where attacks and intimidation scared off many voters, Shi'ites in Najaf embraced the poll wholeheartedly. Most said they chose list 169, whose campaign posters carry Sistani's image.
Some began trickling in as soon as the region's 240 polling centres opened at 7 a.m. By mid-morning queues of voters snaked around schools used as voting places, everyone holding their documents at the ready.
"It is a good feeling to experience democracy for the first time," said Isra Mohammed, a housewife in the black Islamic robe traditionally worn by women in southern Iraq.
"We voted for the United Iraqi Alliance, because it includes good people who will serve this country, God willing, after past rulers dealt us a great deal of harm."
Inside polling stations, electoral officials marked off voters' names on printed registers tens of pages thick, before handing them two ballot sheets, one for the national and one for provincial polls, to take into cardboard voting booths.
Voters placed the marked sheets in clear plastic ballot boxes, lids locked, and dipped a finger in indelible blue ink.
But illiteracy and confusion among voters, who under Saddam Hussein could vote only yes or no in polls, meant the ballot was not always secret and there were occasional minor abuses.
"I want the one with the candle for the national and 354 for the local," Talba Nazzal Jabbar told an electoral official, who marked her ballots on her behalf.
The candle is the symbol of the United Iraqi Alliance, but Jabbar did not check if the official ticked the right box.
"I came because the religious authority said so and I don't care if there are explosions. Islam comes first," she said.
Cars were banned from cities across Iraq on election day. In Najaf, Iraqi police and soldiers with assault rifles manned checkpoints every 500 metres on all main streets.
Polling centres were sealed by barbed wire, rocks and sometimes concrete blocks. Police watched from the rooftops.
Men and women, all clad in black robes, queued separately and were searched on their way in to vote. In the nearby Shi'ite town of Kufa polling centres also swarmed with voters.
"We had hoped our 75 election staff could vote first, but we have not had time as people were already arriving when we opened," said Mohammed al-Shathir, voting coordinator at al-Fawatem school. "We have over 2,600 voters registered here. Hundreds have already arrived."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=DRHAVRS0I4CXICRBAEZSFEY?type=worldNews&storyID=7476186&pageNumber=1
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By IWPR reporters in southern Iraq (ICR No. 106, 30-Jan-05)
People in Iraq’s mainly Shia south came to polling stations in a spirit of celebration to cast their ballots in Iraq’s first multi-party elections for half a century.
"Today is the nicest day of my life," said Hadi al-Huseinawi, as he rushed to get to a polling station in the southern city of Nassriyah. "What matters is the elections – it doesn't matter who wins."
Qayser Muhammed, 15, stood on the main road in Nassriyah distributing water to voters who passed by, saying, “This is my way of being part of the elections, since I cannot actually take part given my age."
Voters started queuing early outside polling stations in the south, home to Iraq’s majority Shia community. With 60 per cent of the population, the Shia see the vote as a chance to overturn years of oppression and win a leading role in government.
Voting was largely peaceful in the south, despite four mortar attacks in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city. No one was killed. Two of the attacks hit their intended targets - polling centres in the southern part of the city.
Abu Abeer, a 47-year-old school headmaster, said he initially held off voting for fear that polling sites in Nassriyah might become insurgent targets, "Early on, I was afraid to go along because of [possible] actions by armed men, but it became clear that I was wrong.”
In Diwaniyah, in the Qadisiyah province to the northwest of Nassriyah, armoured vehicles and police patrolled the streets. The Iraqi military and police also used their vehicles to ferry people to polling sites.
Some voters in Diwaniyah reported polling violations. Zaid Salman, a health department employee, said an election monitor approached him and others and asked them to vote for a particular party. “But we didn’t listen to him, and we gave our votes to those who deserved them,” he said.
Ghazi Saad, a 50-year-old retired man, also said that a man outside his polling station was asking people to vote for his party as they went in.
Campaigning officially ended two days ago, and any party that breaks the no-lobbying rules is liable to a fine.
The local electoral commission spokesman denied the reports of violations. “As of 3 pm [two hours before polls closed], turnout was in excess of 80 per cent, and there were no violations or other noteworthy incidents,” said spokesman Dhahir Habeeb.
This story has not been bylined because of concerns for the security of IWPR reporters.
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_106_2_eng.txt
By IWPR reporters in Nassriyah and Diwaniyah (ICR No. 106, 30-Jan-05)
Seventy-two-year-old Um Kadhim said she wasn’t going to let the aches and pains of old age keep her from voting in Iraq’s landmark elections.
"I’ve come here so that all the world can see on television that we want elections," said the Nassriyah resident, adding she’d be voting for the United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition which includes the main Shia parties as well as smaller groups.
The Alliance was set up with the blessing of Iraq’s supreme Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The ayatollah’s reputation is good enough for Um Kadhim, who told IWPR she was going for the bloc specifically because it was “endorsed by the marjaiya”, the Shia clerical leadership.
Although he supported the creation of the United Iraqi Alliance, Sistani abstained from backing specific political groups during the campaign. However, on January 28, a spokesman for his office in Basra, Ali Abdul-Hakim al-Safi, quoted the ayatollah as saying voters should go for the Alliance.
Um Kadhim’s her granddaughter, Fatima al-Saadi, a 22-year-old student, was of a different mind. She said she’d be putting her mark next to the Assembly of Independent Democrats, led by veteran Sunni politician Adnan Pachachi, because the candidates it was fielding had the right kind of expertise in building and reconstruction.
When asked why she wasn’t going for the United Iraqi Alliance, Fatima said, "I think the marjaiya wants us to take part and to vote for any list we like – it hasn’t imposed any specific list.”
Fatima's father Kadhim, meanwhile, voted for Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s Iraqi List, saying he believed Allawi would be able to impose law and order.
The different visions of the future held by three generations of one family are not unusual in this part of Iraq.
Iraq’s Shia majority, who make up some 60 per cent of the country’s population, see the election as a chance to win power after years of oppression and exclusion.
The national election was for a 275-member transitional National Assembly, which is charged with writing a new constitution. Each party will win seats in the assembly based on the percentage of votes their party received on election day, with Iraq taken as one big constituency. Provincial elections for governorate councils are being held at the same time, as is a vote in the Kurdish north for a regional election.
Before the election, analysts predicted that Shia voters would largely back the United Iraqi Alliance. But on the day, Shia voters expressed a variety of opinions.
Diwaniyah resident Fakhriya Habeeb said she was voting for the Iraqi Communist Party. “I’ve come here to give my vote for the one who deserves it,” she said.
Others made their choice based on the personality of a particular candidate.
Mustafa Basim, a student at the University of Qadisiyah, in Diwaniyah, said he believed Prime Minister Allawi was the kind of strong leader Iraq needed in the future.
“He’s firm, and he has adopted a heavy-handed style towards those who disobey,” he said. “That’s the kind of person we need.”
In Shia areas, some people said they were backing Allawi because they believed he played a key role in subduing Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric who led two uprisings against the Coalition and the interim government last year.
“Ayad Allawi helped us get rid of Muqtada al-Sadr’s tyranny. That man [Sadr] is a hard-liner, and he destroyed our city,” said Hasan Ali, an engineer in Qadisiyah.
Among United Iraqi Alliance voters, some - though not all - were prompted by the perception that it was the clerical establishment’s favourite.
Civil servant Hayder al-Khashan said he “responded to the call of the marjaiya” and voted for the bloc, but he admitted that a part of him didn’t want to, "I wish I could have voted for Ayad Allawi’s list, but this [Alliance] is the opinion of the marjaiya."
Others said they were attracted by the fact that the Alliance includes secular Shia candidates such as Ahmed Chalabi, formerly a leading émigré politician.
“Chalabi deserves to be elected because he called for de-Baathification, [a move] against the Baath party which destroyed us and our country,” said Furqan Faisal, a professor at Qadisiyah University. “Now we’re showing our gratitude by voting for him.”
This story has not been bylined because of concerns for the security of IWPR reporters.
http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?archive/irq/irq_106_3_eng.txt