[Media-watch] Some just voted for food

[David J McKnight]

** Dahr Jamail's Iraq Dispatches **
** http://dahrjamailiraq.com **


   January 31, 2005


     Some Just Voted for Food

Inter Press Service
Dahr Jamail

*BAGHDAD, Jan 31 (IPS) - Voting in Baghdad was linked with receipt of 
food rations, several voters said after the Sunday poll.*

Many Iraqis said Monday that their names were marked on a list provided 
by the government agency that provides monthly food rations before they 
were allowed to vote.

?I went to the voting centre and gave my name and district where I lived 
to a man,? said Wassif Hamsa, a 32-year-old journalist who lives in the 
predominantly Shia area Janila in Baghdad. ?This man then sent me to the 
person who distributed my monthly food ration.?

Mohammed Ra'ad, an engineering student who lives in the Baya'a district 
of the capital city reported a similar experience.

Ra'ad, 23, said he saw the man who distributed monthly food rations in 
his district at his polling station. ?The food dealer, who I know 
personally of course, took my name and those of my family who were 
voting,? he said. ?Only then did I get my ballot and was allowed to vote.?

?Two of the food dealers I know told me personally that our food rations 
would be withheld if we did not vote,? said Saeed Jodhet, a 21-year-old 
engineering student who voted in the Hay al-Jihad district of Baghdad.

There has been no official indication that Iraqis who did not vote would 
not receive their monthly food rations.

Many Iraqis had expressed fears before the election that their monthly 
food rations would be cut if they did not vote. They said they had to 
sign voter registration forms in order to pick up their food supplies.

Their experiences on the day of polling have underscored many of their 
concerns about questionable methods used by the U.S.-backed Iraqi 
interim government to increase voter turnout.

Just days before the election, 52 year-old Amin Hajar who owns an auto 
garage in central Baghdad had said: ?I'll vote because I can't afford to 
have my food ration cut...if that happened, me and my family would 
starve to death.?

Hajar told IPS that when he picked up his monthly food ration recently, 
he was forced to sign a form stating that he had picked up his voter 
registration. He had feared that the government would use this 
information to track those who did not vote.

Calls to the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI) and to the 
Ministry of Trade, which is responsible for the distribution of the 
monthly food ration, were not returned.

Other questions have arisen over methods to persuade people to vote. 
U.S. troops tried to coax voters in Ramadi, capital city of the al-Anbar 
province west of Baghdad to come out to vote, AP reported.

IECI officials have meanwhile 'downgraded' their earlier estimate of 
voter turnout.

IECI spokesman Farid Ayar had declared a 72 percent turnout earlier, a 
figure given also by the Bush Administration.

But at a press conference Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying 
the turnout would be nearer 60 percent of registered voters.

The earlier figure of 72 percent, he said, was ?only guessing? and ?just 
an estimate? that had been based on ?very rough, word of mouth estimates 
gathered informally from the field.? He added that it will be some time 
before the IECI can issue accurate figures on the turnout.

?Percentages and numbers come only after counting and will be announced 
when it's over,? he said. ?It is too soon to say that those were the 
official numbers.?

Where there was a large turnout, the motivation behind the voting and 
the processes both appeared questionable. The Kurds up north were voting 
for autonomy, if not independence. In the south and elsewhere Shias were 
competing with Kurds for a bigger say in the 275-member national assembly.

In some places like Mosul the turnout was heavier than expected. But 
many of the voters came from outside, and identity checks on voters 
appeared lax. Others spoke of vote-buying bids.

The Bush Administration has lauded the success of the Iraq election, but 
doubtful voting practices and claims about voter turnout are both mired 
in controversy.

Election violence too was being seen differently across the political 
spectrum.

More than 30 Iraqis, a U.S. soldier, and at least 10 British troops died 
Sunday. Hundreds of Iraqis were also wounded in attacks across Baghdad, 
in Baquba 50km northeast of the capital as well as in the northern 
cities Mosul and Kirkuk.

The British troops were on board a C-130 transport plane that crashed 
near Balad city just northwest of Baghdad. The British military has yet 
to reveal the cause of the crash.

Despite unprecedented security measures in which 300,000 U.S. and Iraqi 
security forces were brought in to curb the violence, nine suicide 
bombers and frequent mortar attacks took a heavy toll in the capital 
city, while strings of attacks were reported around the rest of the country.

As U..S. President George W. Bush saw it, ?some Iraqis were killed while 
exercising their rights as citizens.?


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