Iraq reports some violent intimidation of voters

IRAQI authorities began counting millions of ballots yesterday and received some complaints about the conduct of the parliamentary election, including allegations of “violent interference” with voters.

The election commission said none of the complaints involved fraud.

Officials said it could take at least two weeks until final results are announced for the new, four-year parliament because all the complaints have to be investigated. Preliminary results might be available in less than a week, they said.

Although violence was low on election day, the US marines said a mortar attack killed an Iraqi soldier and four children playing soccer in a school playground that was a polling station in the western Euphrates River valley town of Parwana. Two children were injured.

Bulgaria started withdrawing its 400-strong battalion and will transfer its military responsibilities in the city of Diwaniya to government forces. The Bulgarian defence ministry said that “with the elections conducted, Bulgaria’s infantry battalion has concluded successfully its mission in Iraq.”

The election commission did not provide any figures on how many of Iraq’s 15 million voters cast ballots Thursday, but officials estimated turnout could have been as high as 70%.

The commission said it had received 178 election complaints so far, and spokesman Ezzeddin al-Mohamady said 35 of them charged “violent interference” from the police, army or election workers.

He said most of the rest, 101, were related to campaigning violations such as using religious symbols in campaign ads.

Western officials in the Iraqi capital said they had heard reports of numerous voting irregularities in the north and south, most of them dealing with intimidation of voters.

Mr Al-Mohamady confirmed that “there have been some violations in Kirkuk” a northern city claimed by Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen.

“There were shortages [of ballots] in some stations. Some voters rolls, maybe, were missing some names. This did not only happen in the Arab area, but in different parts of Kirkuk,” he said.

In Mosul, capital of the predominantly Sunni Arab province of Nineveh, an official with the Sunni Arab Iraqi Islamic Party charged that Kurdish soldiers voted twice in at least one location.

The head of Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab slate, the Iraqi Accordance Front, predicted the governing Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance would not retain its slim parliamentary majority.

Adnan al-Dulaimi said his group, the Kurdish Alliance and former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s secular ticket would gain strength and might be able to form a governing coalition.

But with Shi’ite Arabs making up 60% of Iraq’s 27 million people, the Shi’ite alliance is expected to win the largest bloc in the 275-member parliament and have the first crack at trying to form a government.