(C) DIYALA ELECTION PREP: MINOR LOGISTICAL AND SECURITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KIRKUK 000290 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/13/2015 TAGS: PGOV KDEM IZ SUBJECT: (C) DIYALA ELECTION PREP: MINOR LOGISTICAL AND SECURITY ISSUES REMAIN, COMPLAINTS LIKELY CLASSIFIED BY: Richard Bell, Regional Coordinator, REO Kirkuk, Department Of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (U) This is a SET Ba'quba cable. ¶2. SUMMARY: Three days before the election, the IECI and ISF appear to be well prepared for the polling on December 15. With CF support, the involved organizations have repeatedly drilled for the election day operations, and a December 10 "dress rehearsal" went well. Potential problem areas remain: the Diyala IECI Director, whose lack of organizational ability and questionable decision-making made the ultimate success of the referendum in Diyala more difficult, has not shown improvement so far in the preparations for this election. AIF intent to disrupt the election has been demonstrated in the assassination of a local IECI director, and ongoing conflict in the northwestern al-Udhaim area may lead to increased targeting of polling stations and complaints by residents about how operations are run. Finally, allegations from all corners of lack of balance in the IECI have begun, likely prefiguring complaints of electoral malfeasance in several areas of Diyala. END SUMMARY. -------------- (U) PREPARATIONS IN PLACE -------------- ¶3. (SBU) The December 15 National Assembly elections in Diyala will be conducted at 268 polling centers, consolidated into 246 sites due to lack of suitable structures for conducting of polling. The numbers of centers and of sites match the numbers achieved during the referendum; a last-minute attempt on December 11 to add eleven new sites to the original number has been shelved after CF and ISF objections to the additional burden that would be placed upon security resources and the increased potential for operational mistakes given the lack of preparation by the IECI or ISF for the new sites. Some municipal governments in eastern Diyala may make bus transportation available for rural voters. ¶4. (SBU) Ballots arrived at the Diyala Public Distribution System (PDS) warehouse on December 9, where they were secured and placed under observation by personnel of the Aegis security company - a procedure matching that of the referendum. On December 12, IECI personnel (guarded by Iraqi army units) moved ballot materials bound for the two eastern qadaas (districts) of Diyala to a secured warehouse in Kirkush, the headquarters of the Iraqi 5th Division. On December 13-14, ballots will be moved in the same manner both from the PDS warehouse and from Kirkush to the individual polling stations in western and eastern Diyala, respectively. IECI workers, guarded by Iraqi police, will secure the polling stations upon arrival of the ballots. ¶5. (C) As during the referendum, the Iraqi police forces are planning to provide static security forces of 8-10 personnel to most polling sites; those considered to particularly at risk will receive 15-man forces. In all of the qadaas, the police will remain in place until the evening of December 16, longer if the retrograde movement of the ballot materials is delayed. The increased number of police in the province since the referendum has allowed some areas to hold back reserves of police to act as a quick reaction force. ¶6. (SBU) Unlike the procedure during the referendum, ballots will be counted once at the Diyala PDS warehouse, where they will be stored, rather than at the polling stations. The retrograde movement of the ballots from the polling stations to the PDS warehouse will be extended over a period of around 24 hours, rather than the 12-hour retrograde that occurred during the referendum. ¶7. (C) A December 10 dress rehearsal of initial ballot movement, polling station setup, and retrograde movement demonstrated Iraqi preparedness for the upcoming elections. With rare exceptions, polling stations were secured by IP and occupied by IECI workers at the predetermined times. (Among the exceptions to this rule were two polling centers in al-Udhaim, where IA reportedly detained IECI workers traveling to staff the posts and charged them with breaking the ban on vehicular movement. Udhaim will likely be a problematic area during the election; see para 13.) Many polling stations did not have female workers to perform searches on female voters and a miscommunication between IECI and ISF in Ba'quba led to a premature departure from polling stations by IECI workers and IPs; these deficiencies will hopefully be remedied prior to the election. -------------- (U) POTENTIAL LOGISTICAL ISSUES -------------- ¶8. (C) The limitations of Diyala IECI Director Amer Lateef Majeed's organizational capabilities, clearly displayed at the chaotic conclusion of the October 15 referendum, have already been evident during the runup to the elections. CF have worked more closely this time with the IECI District Election Office (DEO) directors in an attempt to build capacity at that level, with the hope of being able to take a backseat role on election day; they have repeatedly found instances in which Majeed failed to communicate clearly (or at all) his decisions on logistical matters to the first tier of his subordinates. ¶9. (C) While this propensity to make decisions without communicating them to his subordinates is troubling, the content of Majeed's choices has been problematic as well. In one example, after completing the December 12 early balloting of ISF, detainee, and hospitalized voters (approximately 4,000 were polled) Majeed chose (against CF advice to which he had earlier agreed) to store the ballots in his unguarded personal office rather than the Aegis- and ISF-guarded PDS warehouse, five miles to the north. The ballots will be watched by IECI employees until they are moved to the PDS warehouse for the final count. ¶10. (C) CF work with the IECI to ensure that the mistakes of the referendum (which culminated in a massive retrograde drop-off of ballot materials at the PDS warehouse without any accountability) are not repeated, has led to some friction with the Aegis contractors guarding the PDS warehouse. The eight Aegis personnel (UK nationals who do not speak Arabic and have not been provided with a translator) have contacted UN Regional Observer Timothy Bomberg to request his guidance about CF presence at the PDS warehouse while ballots are present. Bomberg has taken the position that CF assistance to IECI preparations is acceptable as long as CF is not present in the warehouse when the actual counting of the ballots begins. -------------- (U) POTENTIAL SECURITY PROBLEMS -------------- ¶11. (C) The assassination of Ammar Kamil, the IECI director of the Hibhib DEO (east of Ba'quba),and the wounding of his deputy in the same drive-by shooting on December 5 have reminded IECI employees of the dangers of their profession. Initial pleas for better protection have been referred by CF to the ISF; however, most IECI employees appear to have accepted the risks that they run and are operating as usual. As the attack has put the top two men in the DEO out of action, however, there may be negative consequences for the smooth operation of the Hibhib DEO. ¶12. (C) Heavy ongoing fighting between AIF elements and an Iraqi army battalion dispatched at the end of November to secure the al-Udhaim area of northwestern Diyala (a particularly dangerous section of Iraqi Highway 2, the primary route between Baghdad and the Kurdish region) presents a different kind of security problem for the elections. The police chief for Khalis (under whose jurisdiction al-Udhaim falls) told the participants in the December 7 drill that his forces would be unable to spare the manpower necessary to secure five of the ten polling sites in the area given the heightened risk profile. -------------- (U) POTENTIAL PERCEPTIONS OF MALFEASANCE -------------- ¶13. (C) As during the referendum, various Iraqi Islamic Party officials have given us dire advance warnings of vague electoral abuses by all other groups (principally the Kurds),along with specific examples of intimidation of Sunni Arabs living in Kurdish-dominated areas during the election campaign so far. Several areas of Diyala seem disproportionately likely to produce allegations of electoral malfeasance. Jalula, in the northeastern qadaa of Khanaqin, is a mixed town of Kurds and Arabs, but its government, IECI director, and security forces are almost exclusively Kurdish; it featured in Saleh al-Mutlaq's vague accusations of fraud following the October referendum. In the Shi'a-run central town of Wajihiya, Sunnis have already begun to complain about the composition of the IECI and hint that the fix is in. Based on the examples of past elections, the mixed-ethnicity neighborhoods in Ba'quba will likely bring allegations of fraud as well, but no allegations have emerged as yet. Al-Udhaim, of course, will likely face complaints of unfair treatment no matter how cleanly the election is run. ¶16. (C) Ironically, given IIP complaints, the primary concern of the national IECI regarding the elections in Diyala seems to be the number of IIP partisans working in the Diyala IECI - so much so that it called (Kurdish) IECI Director Amer Lateef Majeed to Baghdad for a meeting about the "problem." Majeed says that the information the national IECI presented him on the subject was significantly flawed; many of the names that the IECI had received as IIP members were in fact unaffiliated Sunnis and some were actually Shi'as. (NOTE: The IIP's supposed control of the Diyala IECI is a recurring Shi'a story originally used to explain the good showing of the IIP in the January elections. Given the high margin of "no" votes in Diyala on a Constitution that the IIP leadership supported, the validity of the story seems dubious, but many believe it. END NOTE.) While a serious clearing of the IECI does not appear imminent, two Sunni DEO directors were fired after the referendum for "influencing voting" and the Sunni Deputy Director of the Diyala IECI predicted in early December that he would be fired because of his ethnicity. ¶17. (C) Separately, we have heard complaints from the KDP-affiliated Assistant Governor of Diyala for Technical Affairs that Abduljalil Mudhaffar Ali, the IECI Director in PUK-controlled Khanaqin qadaa, has worked to minimize the number of KDP employees in the Khanaqin IECI. According to the Assistant Governor, Ali withheld the applications of many KDP partisans applying for the IECI's September lottery for temporary pollworkers, leaving PUK partisans dominating the ranks of the temporary pollworkers. (NOTE: The Assistant Governor did not know the number of Arab or Turcoman or Kurdistan Islamic Union employees working in the Khanaqin IECI. END NOTE.) -------------- (U) COMMENT -------------- ¶18. (C) It seems likely that the December 15 elections will be at least as well-run as the October 15 referendum, which was an overall success despite some hiccups in the retrograde movement of balloting material. Unlike in the referendum, however, the interests of the major political organizations in the province will be diametrically opposed to each other; challenges to the vote on the basis of perceived electoral malfeasance should be expected. BELL