DIWANIYAH IECI HEAD SHARES FINAL PROVINCIAL VOTE, THOUGHTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 HILLAH 000007

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 1/9/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: DIWANIYAH IECI HEAD SHARES FINAL PROVINCIAL VOTE, THOUGHTS
ON ELECTION RESULTS AND CONDUCT

REF: HILLAH 0355 2005

CLASSIFIED BY: ALFRED FONTENEAU, REGIONAL COORDINATOR, REO,
AL-HILLAH, STATE.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) Summary: The Diwaniyah Province head of the Independent
Electoral Commission of Iraq (IECI) told REO Al-Hillah staff
that the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA, ballot number 555) won
seven of Diwaniyah's eight National Assembly seats. The director
attributed the result to the mobilization of Shi'a voters
responding to two events that preceeded the December 15
election: Iyad Allawi's trip to the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf,
and an Al-Jazeera program which aired critical views of Grand
Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. The official opined that while
sectarianism seemed to drive the electorate, he maintained that
the Diwaniyah vote was fair and most complaints about the
process were without merit. End summary.

The UIA Landslide Explained
--------------


2. (C) Saad Madhloom, the Diwaniyah head of the IECI, met with
REO staff on January 8. While Madhloom reported that there was
no timetable for revealing the nationwide results of the
December 15 election, the final results from Diwaniyah were in.
He said that the UIA had won seven of Diwaniyah's eight seats,
earning approximately 272,000 of the 340,000 votes cast, with
the remaining seat going to the Iraqi National List (ballot
number 731) of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. The
third-largest bloc of votes, according to Madhloom, went to the
Sarkhis, an extreme splinter Shi'a group, who earned about 7,500
votes.


3. (C) Events just before the election "completely" changed the
results, Madhloom maintained. He argued that Allawi's December 4
trip to the Imam Ali Shrine in Najaf, in which he was chased
from the shrine by a shoe-throwing Sadrist mob and subsequently
alleged an attempt on his life (reftel),galvanized Sadrists
behind the UIA slate. The second event, Madhloom argued, was a
pre-election Al-Jazeera program which aired critical views of
Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. UIA leaders across the region
rallied Shi'a behind this perceived transgression, holding
rallies and demonstrations which, according to Madhloom, moved
even many non-religious Shi'a to favor the UIA. (Note: In a
December 29 meeting, Shaykh Hussein Al-Khalidi, the Diwaniyah
head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI),
one of the UIA's constituent members, independently cited the
same events in explaining what he considered to be a previously
unexpected landslide UIA victory. End note.)

Shi'a Solidarity on the World Stage
--------------


4. (C) Madhloom said that these events drove the Shi'a in
Diwaniyah to vote along sectarian lines sending a message, as he
characterized it, to the nation and the outside world. "If
elections were one month earlier the final results would have
been completely different," Madhloom avowed. "Unfortunately, it
all went sectarian."


5. (C) This sectarianism was the root of many complaints he had
investigated regarding election results since the initial
announcement of the tally, Madhloom alleged. He said that even
the UIA were initially surprised at how well they did, and filed
the first complaint about election day practices in his
province. As their victory became apparent, he said, they
stopped complaining. Madhloom reported that numerous non-UIA
party leaders and candidates in Diwaniyah had confided in him
after the vote that they had voted for the UIA. In one instance,
according to Madhloom, a non-UIA party leader who voted with 40
family members complained to Madhloom that the polling site
where they voted recorded only 30 votes for his slate. After a
series of discussions with the family, Madhloom related, some of
the man's relatives, including his brother, reportedly revealed
that they had actually voted for the 555.


Postpone Local Elections to Consolidate Power?
-------------- -


6. (C) Madhloom predicted that in the next election, Shi'a
voters in South Central Iraq would vote based on the various
coalitions' political programs, having already stood up for
Shi'ism and shown on December 15 that they were the majority
demographically. He predicted that this non-sectarian vote could
happen as soon as provincial and local elections are held after
the formation of a national government. For this reason, he
offered, he suspected that the UIA leadership would seek to
postpone local elections in order to consolidate power and
insure local victories. (Note: In the December 29 meeting
between REO staff and SCIRI Leader Shaykh Al-Khalidi, he
mentioned his desire to postpone local elections for at least
six months. End note.)


7. Comment: Madhloom is an experienced election official who has
been with the IECI since before the January 2005 elections and a
frequent REO interlocutor on many issues. While some of his
observations about voting behavior have been echoed by others,
his comments should be taken as both an attempt to explain the
results and to defend what he sees as the integrity of the vote
in his province. End comment.
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