Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07HILLAH69
2007-05-02 14:09:00
SECRET
REO Hillah
Cable title:  

CLEVER TACTICS, FLAWED ETHICS IN HILLAH MAYOR ELECTION

Tags:  PGOV PREL PINR KDEM KISL IZ IR 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO3278
RR RUEHBC RUEHDE RUEHKUK
DE RUEHIHL #0069/01 1221409
ZNY SSSSS ZZH
R 021409Z MAY 07
FM REO HILLAH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0853
RUEHGB/AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD 0802
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
RUEHIHL/REO HILLAH 0912
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 HILLAH 000069 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/2/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM KISL IZ IR
SUBJECT: CLEVER TACTICS, FLAWED ETHICS IN HILLAH MAYOR ELECTION

REF: A) HILLAH 59 B) HILLAH 48 C) HILLAH 24 D) HILLAH 17

HILLAH 00000069 001.2 OF 002


CLASSIFIED BY: Charles F. Hunter, Babil PRT Leader, REO
Al-Hillah, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)



S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 02 HILLAH 000069

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/2/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINR KDEM KISL IZ IR
SUBJECT: CLEVER TACTICS, FLAWED ETHICS IN HILLAH MAYOR ELECTION

REF: A) HILLAH 59 B) HILLAH 48 C) HILLAH 24 D) HILLAH 17

HILLAH 00000069 001.2 OF 002


CLASSIFIED BY: Charles F. Hunter, Babil PRT Leader, REO
Al-Hillah, Department of State.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (U) This is a PRT Babil Cable.


2. (C) SUMMARY: As anticipated in ref A, the Hillah District
Council (DC) met on April 21 to choose a new mayor. The
surprise winner by one vote - his own - was DC member Sabah
Al-Fatlawi, after a campaign allegedly marred by bribery and
other improprieties. Appeals are under consideration but face
uncertain prospects because of the strength of the Sayyid Rasool
faction backing Al-Fatlawi. The PRT is engaging the DC on
questions concerning the election's legitimacy. END SUMMARY.

--------------
THE GOVERNOR'S OPENING GAMBIT
--------------


3. (S) Babil Governor Salim Saleh Mehdi Al-Muslimawi ordered
Hillah Mayor Imad Lefta Merdan Al-Bayati suspended on February 4
in an apparent effort to install a loyalist in an important
position in Babil province (ref D). Al-Muslimawi chose as
acting mayor the longest-serving sub-district manager within the
Hillah district, Aqeel Abdel Mehdi Al-Silawi of Abu Gharaq.
Al-Silawi, nominally independent but a SCIRI sympathizer, enjoys
a good working relationship with both the governor and the
deputy governor, Hassoon Ali Hassoon Al-Fatlawi, himself a
former Abu Gharaq sub-district manager. According to Babil DC
Legal Committee chair Hussein Hadi Al-Tufaili (strictly
protect),however, the governor's plan was to use Al-Silawi
merely as a placeholder until Mayor Imad could be ousted by a DC
vote. At that point Ali Al-Qasir, the governor's closest ally
in the Babil Provincial Council (PC),would run for the mayor's
job and add another link to SCIRI's grip on power in Babil.

--------------
THE MOMENTUM SHIFTS
--------------


4. (C) But calculations changed when Al-Qasir caused a car
accident on March 1 in which he and two pedestrians were killed
and three PC members injured. The governor, weakened by that

loss at a time when the PC was reportedly considering removing
him from office, soon got more bad news with Jaysh Al-Mahdi's
most blatant challenges to security forces in Al-Hillah since

2004. He thereupon decamped to Iran (ref B) for nearly two
weeks. This absence, and a subsequent trip to Suleimaniyah,
ceded the advantage to his rivals who capitalized on it
brilliantly.

--------------
THE SAYYID RASOOL FACTOR
--------------


5. (S) A political grouping unique to Babil is a faction within
both the PC and the Hillah DC loyal to Sayyid Rasool, a
Hillah-based cleric who formerly was the region's collector of
tithes to Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani. Claiming still to be very
close to Al-Sistani and opposed to the emergence of the Al-Hakim
family as temporal leaders, Sayyid Rasool has established
himself as a formidable, albeit local, power center. His first
demonstration of political savvy was in instigating a sit-in
that toppled Governor Iskandar Witwit in early 2004. Sayyid
Rasool has operated largely behind the scenes since then through
followers such as the Babil PC chair, Mohammed Ali Al-Mas'oudi,
and the heads of the PC's Projects and Energy Committees.

--------------
THE VOTE
--------------


6. (S) Sensing an opening when the governor's Ali Al-Qasir plan
was derailed, the Sayyid Rasool faction countered by putting
forward one of their own, Sabah Al-Fatlawi, as a candidate for
mayor. Al-Fatlawi chairs the DC's Energy Committee and is
believed to have enriched himself by exploiting that position
(ref C). Legal Committee chairman Al-Tufaili alleged to PRT on
April 26 that Al-Fatlawi pursued votes with bribery, citing an
offer the candidate made personally to him of an expensive new
cellular phone. In a DC meeting before the vote, Al-Fatlawi
also offered to give his councilman's salary to one member
currently being paid by donations from all the others. (NOTE:
The DC has 21 members but receives funding for only 20, so the
paid members contribute a fraction of their income to ensure
that everyone gets the same amount. END NOTE.) Apparently his
largesse worked: though Al-Tufaili had confidently predicted to
PRT on April 19 that acting mayor Al-Silawi was a shoo-in,
Al-Fatlawi pulled off an 11-10 victory two days later with his

HILLAH 00000069 002.2 OF 002


own vote proving the deciding one.

--------------
ON THE UP AND UP?
--------------


7. (C) Al-Tufaili cited the following to PRT as grounds for
having the vote declared null and void:

-- An unfair advantage to Al-Fatlawi in being the only candidate
serving on the DC and therefore able to vote for himself.
According to Al-Tufaili, any DC member wanting to run for mayor
should resign from the council at least a week before the actual
vote. (NOTE: This view appears to be his own rather than one
based on council regulations. END NOTE.)

-- A vote cast by a substitute member of the council whose
status had never been properly ratified; that person, Abdel
Jalil Kadhum Al-Kreidi, launched an ad hominem attack on acting
mayor Al-Silawi during the session in which each candidate was
allowed 15 minutes to speak to the council.

-- A vote cast by a member (Salim Al-Sulaikhi) who had been
removed from the PC on charges of forging educational
credentials and should therefore be ineligible for service on
the DC.


8. (C) Al-Tufaili said that the DC had declined to entertain his
challenge to Al-Fatlawi's election, but that Aqeel Al-Silawi was
also pursuing an appeal. One of the defeated mayoral
candidates, Dhahir Habib Al-A'raji, is also a PC member and is
trying to get that body to overturn the election by refusing to
uphold the results when the DC asks for confirmation. However
the head of the PC Legal Committee, Maqboula Jawad, is in the
Sayyid Rasool camp and may try with other followers to stymie
that effort. A PRT contact overheard her and the Legal
Committee's other member, Sadrist affiliate Murtada Kamel,
defending the vote in a meeting in Al-A'raji's office on April
24, saying that rejecting the results would lead to a "crisis"
in Al-Hillah (NFI).


9. (C) Al-Tufaili also criticized legal shortcomings in the
removal of Mayor Imad Lefta Al-Bayati from office, including the
fact that the investigative committee's findings were never made
public and the accused did not have an opportunity to defend
himself before the DC prior to their final vote against him.
The conflict-averse Al-Bayati appears uninterested in going to
court to regain his position. Complaining bitterly of being
"abandoned" by the Americans - when he largely sealed his own
fate by meekly taking a month's vacation rather than following
the PRT's advice and immediately challenging the suspension - he
remains interested in U.S. help to have his military rank
restored or find employment with a ministry in Baghdad (ref A).

--------------
COMMENT
--------------


10. (C) Application of the rule of law has been suspect from the
beginning of this episode, dating back to the governor's seeming
overreach in suspending Mayor Imad Lefta in February. Under CPA
71, mayors are answerable to and appointed/removed by district
councils. Because the DC engaged at that time and voted to
uphold the suspension and the appointment of an investigative
committee, however, USG intervention did not seem warranted
beyond frank discussions with the governor and abstention from
dealing with the acting mayor.


11. (C) COMMENT, CONTINUED: Now, given allegations of fraud,
dubious due process in Al-Bayati's dismissal and questions about
who took part in the voting to replace him, rule of law equities
need to be taken up at the source. PRT is seeking an
opportunity to meet with the Babil District Council, in the
context of capacity building and probably at the council's
normal training venue, to explain these concerns. Though an
unlikely outcome, redoing the election could ultimately have the
ironic and unintended consequence of snatching from the jaws of
defeat the governor's plan for furthering SCIRI entrenchment.
Such are the dilemmas of democracy building in Iraq. END
COMMENT.
HUNTER