Election preparations continue amid insecurity

As election preparations continue in a heavily guarded office in Baghdad, residents around the city struggle to come to grips with the violence of recent days. On Tuesday a car bomb close to a police station in central Baghdad killed at least 47 people and injured many more. This followed violence sparked by mortar attacks on the heavily guarded "green zone" on Sunday, which left at least 59 Iraqis dead and more than 200 wounded. The "zone" is home to thousands of Americans and other foreigners, including United Nations staff. At least four US troops were injured. "There is no choice. Election preparation continues normally," Farid Ayar, spokesman for the independent election commission in Iraq, told IRIN. "I was yesterday outside the 'green zone'. There were some shells but it was not a problem." The election commission is being advised by United Nations staff. Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshar Zebari has said that the level of security will dictate whether national elections can be held by their scheduled January 2005 date. His words echoed UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement on 7 September that ongoing violence "could undermine confidence in the transitional political process, making it more difficult to create the conditions necessary for the holding of elections in January 2005." Many people on the streets of Baghdad were doubtful that fair elections could be held in January given the level of violence in the country. Even if things calm down in the next four months, people still feel scarred by the ongoing bloodshed in Iraq over the past 16 months, many told IRIN. "Things just keep getting worse. That doesn't encourage election preparations," Yacoub Rebas, 21, the proprietor of a cheese and yoghurt shop, told IRIN. "If people feel secure, they can vote without hesitation. Now, they feel fear." Even when there is no fighting in the street, insurgents still threaten people and kidnap those with money, or their children, Rebas said. A man buying fruit on the street nearby agreed. Mohammed Abdul Mutaleb was in the busy central Karrada shopping district, just a few miles from Haifa street, where the majority of Iraqis were killed in Sunday's fighting when an attack helicopter fired on a burning fighting vehicle killing at least 30 people nearby. "People are coming from outside to increase the chaos, so we must have an election," Mutaleb told IRIN. "The government has the responsibility to make security stronger." When the former regime in Iraq fell in May 2003, residents were very excited about the idea of a free election to vote in new leaders. Now many are cynical about who will be voted into power, Mutaleb said, following a process to elect an interim national assembly in which only one slate of 100 candidates was put forward. New political parties in Iraq have been more interested in consolidating their power against other political parties, rather than letting voters know what they stand for, a senior US diplomat watching the process told IRIN, declining to be named. Residents regard many of the new political parties with suspicion, since they are made up of former exiles who lived outside the country during much of Saddam Hussein's regime, the diplomat said. "There is great scepticism toward any of the parties from the Iraqi public," the US diplomat said. But elections have been held in other countries where there was continued violence, including East Timor, the diplomat said. US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that the US military has a plan to quell the insurgency. "It's no accident that the violence continues. An election is the antithesis of what these insurgents want to create," the diplomat said. Regardless of the violence, if people feel cynical about the election process, they won't participate, Hamid Ali, 21, a bookshop owner, told IRIN. Voters are waiting for religious leaders such as Shi'ite Muslim Sheikh Ali Sistani to tell them that such an election will be fair, Mutaleb said. Others don't even know an election is scheduled, Mutaleb added. The Iraqi election commission is putting together a voter database from existing food ration card data. Under more than 10 years of international sanctions, Iraq's population received a monthly food basket in a UN-administered programme that has since been turned over to the country's Ministry of Trade.