As Iraqis register to vote, Shiites enthusiastic while fear grips Sunnis

"The people here are ready and counting the days to reach Jan. 30," he said, referring to the historic date when Iraqis will vote freely for the first time in five decades.

Across Baghdad, another food-ration agent, Salah Mahmood, nearly recoiled in fear when asked about the voter registration drive.

With a little coaxing, Mahmood acknowledged that he's been threatened and no longer hands out registration forms in his mainly Sunni Muslim neighborhood.

"Twenty days ago, I found a letter stuck on the door of my shop warning me to stop distributing the forms," Mahmood said. If he ignores the warning, Mahmood said, he knows what will happen: "I'm going to be killed with my family."

Block by block, and neighborhood by neighborhood, Iraq's election process is unfolding in starkly different ways. In areas populated by Shiites, who are the majority in Iraq, the process is going relatively smoothly. In contrast, intimidation and fear are rampant in some areas where Sunnis reside.

The success of the registration drive - and the success of the parliamentary election itself - matters greatly. If enough Sunnis don't register, the Shiite population is certain to dominate the election, leaving the minority Sunnis without a voice or incentive to support the government. After such an election, Iraq might be rocked by charges of minority disenfranchisement, weakening hopes for quelling violence and reducing sectarian strife.

Sunnis, who dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein, have violently opposed the U.S. occupation and the interim government. Sunni cities such as Fallujah have been at the heart of the insurgency.

Shiites reside largely in southern and central Iraq, and are at least half the nation's population. Sunnis, who ruled Iraq for decades under Saddam Hussein, make up significantly less. Ethnically distinct Kurds, who are also Sunni, compose about a fifth of the population and live in the north of the country.

To reach the most eligible voters, electoral officials decided to conduct registration through the thousands of sites where residents pick up food rations. Often in a neighborhood home or small shop, Iraqi families pick up monthly allotments of a few pounds of rice, wheat, sugar, tea and cooking oil. The food-ration agents generally handle 150 to 300 families each.

In Sunni areas of Baghdad, some food-ration agents said they were terrified of the threats against them. Such threats appear to be common.

"I received 250 registration forms and distributed only 50 before I received a yellow envelope," said an agent in the Amiriyah district of western Baghdad who was afraid to give his name. When he opened it, "there was a warning that if I do not stop distributing these forms I will have no one to blame but myself."

When he asked employees at the Trade Ministry's food rationing department what to do, he said, he was told quietly to stop handing out the forms.

A spokesman for the nine-member Electoral Commission, Adel al Lami, said he was aware of "the threats to some of the food-ration agents and also the refusal of others to distribute the voter registrations."

Eligible Iraqis who don't register through food-ration agents can go to any of 128 election centers in Baghdad to register, al Lami said, adding that voting officials are working with police to provide security for the centers.

"The commission is not a military unit, but we're in close contact with the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Defense," he said.

The deadline to register is Dec. 15.

It's not only threats that keep some Sunnis from registering. Many are bitterly angry over U.S. and British military occupation and a fierce offensive that began Nov. 8 to clear out insurgents from Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad in a region known as the "Sunni triangle." In many parts of the triangle, Sunni leaders said fighting was too intense for them to organize effectively, let alone campaign, for the election.

"We have around 3,000 families in this neighborhood, and in my personal opinion only 10 percent will vote," said Mahmood Naser, a district council chairman in the largely Sunni Amariyah neighborhood near the international airport.

A Fallujah resident displaced to Baghdad, 38-year-old Faysal Hamad, said voting in his home city was unlikely: "All the streets are stained with blood and still filled with dead bodies. ... It makes it impossible to have the elections."

In the bustling Karradah sector of central Baghdad, Khalid Waleed Khadum, a 45-year-old Shiite, arrived at a food-rationing center with his wife, sounding a positive note: "I'm very glad that I'll be able to vote. This is the best chance to express our freedom to select who we want in a democratic way and without pressure."

Salom, the food-ration agent who voiced enthusiasm for the registration drive, said residents in his northeast district, Sadr City, had pestered him to get their forms more rapidly, and that only five of 165 families had yet to register.

"I haven't heard about threats to other agents in this area. On the contrary, people here are helping us and helping each other to provide a suitable atmosphere for the elections," Salom said. "I'm encouraged by the elections because it is the only way to stabilize this country."

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/10305274.htm

CAIRO, November 30 (IslamOnline.net) – Following years of marginalization under the reign of ousted president Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s Shiites believe it is high time they dominated the country’s political landscape, opposing vigorously putting off general election slated for January30 , a military and political Iraqi expert said on Tuesday, November30 .

“Shiite authorities want to make the fullest out of the political status quo and lay to rest string criticism and accusations from their own community of being inert,” Mohammad Al-Askari told IslamOnline.net in an interview here.

After having been left on the shelf for decades, they resurfaced now as the most powerful and influential in Iraq’s religious and political mosaic, he said.

Askari said Shiite authorities and politicians make use now of the Sunnis’ rejection, chiefly from the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), to take part in the January vote under the US occupation and the fierce battles between Sunni resistance groups and the occupation troops.

“Add to that, the Americans do know that they (the Shiites) are a majority in Iraq.”

According to official statistics released following the US occupation of Iraq, Shiites make up60 -65% of the Iraqi people.

However, London-based Al-Quds press news agency said in a January report that the Iraqi Sunnis outnumbered the Shiites in the oil-rich country.

The AMS has called for a boycott to the January elections. So far, close to70 groups have threatened to boycott the vote, charging that any poll should only be held after the withdrawal of foreign troops, and to protest onslaughts on Sunni cities.

Sending a strong message, a spokesman for Iraq's top Shiite scholars Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani said they would not accept any attempt to delay the elections.

Swimming against the Shiite current, young Shiite leader Muqtada Al-Sadr has called for boycotting the elections, protesting continued US occupation of his country.

Expediting Pullout

Askari further said that Shiite authorities believe that the elections would help “expediting” the pullout of the US-led occupation troops.



“They want to elect a government as soon as possible to that end,” he said.

The Shiites are confident that “if the elections were put off, it would open the possibility of being postponed sine die or even cancelled under different circumstances, which would means the Shiites would lose their current political privileges,” the expert added.

But Askari said that dismissed the current political status quo in Iraq would lead to politically marginalize the Iraqi Sunnis.

“The occupation authority can’t exclude the Sunnis entirely from the scene and doesn’t mind if they even managed to capture few seats in the (275-member) parliament to give credibility to the political process.”

Undeclared Resolution

On the much-criticized Sharm El-Sheikh international conference on Iraq held on November22 -23, Askari, who participated in the event as an independent observer, revealed that it had adopted an undeclared resolution calling for not marginalizing any community in the upcoming election.

“The conference further called on the interim government of Iyad Allawi to hold dialogue with the Sunni resistance and reach a reconciliation with Sunni opposition leaders abroad to set stage for the January vote,” he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is due to arrive in Jordan Tuesday for talks with leading Iraqi exiles in an effort to involve all Iraqis in the elections.

“The aim is to find a common ground and explain to them the situation on the ground,” said Thaer Al-Naqib, the Iraqi government spokesman.

Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday, November25 , that the government was planning to hold talks with Iraqi resistance soon in the Jordanian capital Amman upon calls from various parties who attended the Egypt conference.

The conference closed on November 23 after adopting a declaration in support of the country’s January election, but fell short of setting a timetable for the withdrawal of the US-led occupation troops amid calls of “legitimizing” the occupation.

http://www.islamonline.org/English/News/2004-11/30/article02.shtml