Out-of-country voting critical to quash vote buying claims

Thousands of Iraqis currently living in Iran have been promised land and money if they return home in time to vote in the 30 January elections, according to at least two officials at the Ministry of Migration and Displacement (MoMD). Whether it’s true or not, the allegations are one of the main reasons out-of-country voting is being organised in 14 countries where exiles live, Hussain Hindawi, president of Iraq’s Independent Electoral Commission, told IRIN. The commission is organising parliamentary elections, along with a regional election in northern Iraq and elections for regional offices, with technical help from United Nations workers. More than US $90 million has been set aside to run the election, Hindawi added. “If we didn’t do out-of-country voting, we would see huge numbers of people coming here from Jordan, Syria and Iran,” he said. Iraqis who have lived in Iran for more than 15 years after being forced out of the country by former president Saddam Hussein are being asked by the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, to return to vote, Thaer Sahood, a MoMD official, told IRIN. While he doesn’t have evidence, Sahood presents pages and pages of names of people living in temporary camps near the Iraq/Iran border, saying that almost all of them mentioned hearing that SCIRI would help them if they returned to Iraq. Minister Sorya Isho Warda agreed, telling IRIN that the sometimes 1,000 daily returnees don’t understand that they can also vote if they stay in Iran for just a while longer. “There is an invitation from SCIRI, who told them to come back,” Sahood said. “Since it is two months from now, we are also told that they are being provided something to stay until the elections.” Sahood declined to say what SCIRI might be providing, whether it be food or money or something else. Many returnees have received food ration cards from Iraq’s interim government which entitle them to food to feed a family of four for a month. Shi'ite Muslim party leaders disagree with ministry officials, saying Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the top Shi'ite religious leader in Iraq, who oversees SCIRI and any other Shi'ite parties, doesn’t care where voters are based, as long as they are Iraqi citizens. “I’m hearing this for the first time that some political parties are asking people to come home to vote,” a spokesman for Imam Hussain Sadr’s office representing Sistani in Baghdad, told IRIN. He declined to be named specifically. “We just are asking for all Iraqis to vote. We don’t allow parties to tell people to return home. We just ask for a good situation for voting in other countries.” The marjahea, or Shi'ite political council, based in the holy city of Najaf, will remain neutral about candidates and about voting, the spokesman said. “It is ok if people vote in Iran, they still will vote for Shi'ite leaders,” Ali Majid, an official in anti-US cleric Moqtada Sadr’s office in Khadamiya, an eastern suburb of Baghdad, told IRIN. Sadr agreed to a truce with US forces in August in return for a chance to be involved in the political process. Sadr also reports to Sistani, although his own political power base appears to be large in southern Iraq, where he recruited Mehdi Army forces who fought against US troops in August. “Ayatollah Sistani has always asked for fair and transparent elections to be held, wherever the voters come from,” the electoral commission’s Hindawi said. Sahood’s allegations are just the first of what are sure to be many to emerge about out-of-country voting. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) an aid agency that usually works with displaced people and refugees, is coordinating the project. Up to 3 million Iraqis live overseas, probably 1.5 million of voting age, deputy director of out-of-country voting, Tihana Bartulac, told IRIN. That number is probably not large enough to swing any vote, statistically speaking, he said. Iraq has an estimated 22-27 million people - it is difficult to tell exactly how many live in the country because a census has not been done since 1997. “[The] IOM has to prepare for the highest number of voters but the numbers are so rough and the estimates are so rough that IOM sent out planning teams to some of the countries,” Bartulac said.