Iraqi expats urged to vote in elections

The Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) is appealing to Iraqis living in neighbouring Jordan to vote in upcoming national assembly elections. An IECI campaign, in collaboration with the Jordanian authorities, has placed hundreds of billboards all over the capital, Amman, urging Iraqis to exercise their right to vote and listing the documentation required to cast ballots. “All those Iraqis over 18 years old, of proven Iraqi nationality, are called to participate,” declared one IECI official. On 15 December, Iraqis will decide who will occupy the 275-member national assembly. Out-of-country voting will be held from 13 to 15 December. Jordanian authorities have also permitted Iraqi parties to conduct campaigns in local newspapers and have placed candidates’ banners in and around the 13 polling centres in Amman; Zarqa, in the east; Irbid, in the north; and Muwaqqar, near by the Iraqi border. A total of 228 political entities are vying for parliamentary seats, according to the al-Iraqiyah television network. The election will mandate a fully-constitutional parliament with a four-year term, which will in turn choose a president and two deputies from among its members. The president and his deputies will then choose a prime minister and cabinet from members of the assembly. Through its out-of-country voting programme, headquartered in Amman, the IECI is coordinating with 550 polling centres in countries around the world, including Australia, Canada, Germany, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, the UK and the US, to name only a few. According to Mouayaed al-Windawi, an Iraqi political scientist at the Amman-based Arab Institute for Research and Strategic Studies, the biggest expatriate Iraqi communities are in Jordan, Syria, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. The Hashemite Kingdom is home to a large number of Iraqis living outside Iraq, estimated by Jordanian authorities to number about 800,000. Most of them are Sunni Muslims, and about half are said to be eligible voters. The participation of these communities is important, he added, because “Iraqis living in these countries could have a substantial influence on the final results.” Some 230 of the 275 assembly seats are distributed among Iraq’s 18 governorates based on the numbers of registered voters in those constituencies. Votes cast outside of the country will fill the remaining 45 “compensatory” seats. The United Nations is assisting in the election process in Iraq. The last national assembly elections, held in January, were dogged by low voter turnouts in Jordan, estimated at less than 5 percent. Mainstream Sunni parties generally boycotted the race, which kept them from having a voice in the present interim assembly. They also voted against a proposed national constitution in October, arguing that the planned charter, which proposed a federalist system, would result in the partition of Iraq. The IECI is hoping its aggressive media campaign will serve to boost the participation of Sunni voters this time around. Ballots are expected to be cast along broadly sectarian and ethnic lines. However, widespread criticism of the current government’s handling of public services and the security situation may draw Kurdish and Shi’ite voters away from the Kurdistan Alliance and the United Iraqi Alliance, considered the two biggest parties.