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Voting in Iraq not for faint of heart
KIMI YOSHINO and RAHEEM SALMAN, LOS ANGELES TIMES | January 13, 2009
BAGHDAD — Provincial council candidate Fareeq Khazaali moves through the crowds of shoppers on Mutanabi Street with the confidence and ease of a veteran politician, shaking hands and smiling, as his children, wearing homemade campaign T-shirts, distribute leaflets.
When he’s not pressing the flesh, he’s sending frequent text messages (“Greetings. Please elect your candidate Fareeq Khazaali.”) and making friends on Facebook — surprising political sophistication for a novice candidate in a country taking baby steps toward democracy.
As Iraq nears its provincial election day, Jan. 31, residents are faced with ballots that could make even a seasoned voter’s head spin. In total across the country, 14,400 candidates representing 407 political entities are vying for 440 seats. Fourteen of Iraq’s 18 provinces are holding elections, and the crowded field in some of them — in Baghdad alone, there are more than 2,400 candidates — is only one of the challenges facing people seeking office. They also must deal with security concerns and questionable campaign tactics.
As the candidates mingle with the public, they are easy targets for assassins. Still, many of the politicians are undeterred.”
In terms of parties and candidates, you’re not going to see a lot of phone calling and phone banking,” said Erin Mathews, director of Iraq programs for the Washington-based National Democratic Institute, which is holding workshops for nearly 800 Iraqi candidates. “More of the parties are doing things like pamphlets, door hangers and door-to-door campaigning, which sounds tremendously impossible in Iraq, but it’s not.”
Khazaali, a Shiite Arab on the secular Iraqi Nation Party slate, walked along Mutanabi Street, famous for its booksellers and site of a 2007 suicide bombing that left 30 people dead, while several armed guards stood in the distance. After shaking Khazaali’s hand, Mohammed Saleh Faiz, 33, said, “I respect the way this candidate is campaigning. We rarely see such frankness and transparency among the politicians.”
To get elected, Khazaali says, he must distinguish himself from other candidates. That is why he’s using text messages and Facebook — tips he learned from candidate training with the National Democratic Institute, a nongovernmental organization.
Kurdish Alliance provincial council candidate Alaa Arkwazy also is using Facebook. She wrote on her wall: “ You know my devotion to my country and my love to Baghdad. ... Tell those who are really devoted.”
Unlike some candidates, Arkwazy said she doesn’t have a war chest. She’ll spend less than $1,000 on posters and on cooking supplies for homemade desserts.
Election law prohibits handing out gifts in exchange for bribes, although the practice appears commonplace.
Abu Ali, a 29-year-old lawyer in Hillah, said one of the major slates offered him cash, saying its candidates face stiff competition in a field of 1,300 hopefuls for the provincial council. Its representatives said they would give him $1,700 if he recruited 200 voters, but Abu Ali refused.
Politicians, he said, “shouldn’t ascend by such methods. It should be decided at the polls.”