IRAQI PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS TIMELINE UPDATE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 003232

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/01/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: IRAQI PROVINCIAL ELECTIONS TIMELINE UPDATE

REF: BAGHDAD 3160

Classified By: Deputy Political Counselor Steve Walker for Reasons 1.4
(b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Shortly after parliament passed the
provincial election law, UNAMI Chief Electoral Advisor Sandra
Mitchell began working closely with the Independent High
Electoral Council (IHEC) and the International Electoral
Assistance Team (IEAT) to develop a timeline to hold
provincial elections by January 31, 2009. In the next four
months, coalition registration will end, parties must
nominate candidates, the voter registry must be finalized,
ballots designed, a mechanism for "special needs" voting
(detainees, police, hospital patients) determined and a
security plan finalized. At an October 1 briefing, Mitchell
cautioned that this is a tentative timeline and could be
modified by IHEC at any time. Candidate nomination and
ballot design are affected by the minority representation
issue (reftel). End Summary.


2. (C) On October 1, UNAMI Chief Electoral Advisor Sandra
Mitchell briefed PolOffs on her meetings with the Independent
High Electoral Council (IHEC) and the International Election
Assistance Team (IEAT) to develop an election timeline to
meet the January 31, 2009 deadline for provincial elections.
Mitchell cautioned that the timeline is tentative owing to
the unresolved issue of minority representation (see para 6).
However, she did say IHEC is comfortable with the January 31
deadline. The following is a month-by-month breakdown of
upcoming election events:

OCTOBER
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3. (C) Coalition registration was re-opened after the
election law passed on September 24. It will close on
October 10, and Mitchell informed PolOffs that several
coalitions have registered (Note: Coalition registration
officially ran from May 28 through June 17. End Note.)
Candidate nomination will begin October 15 and run through
October 28. Registered political entities will need to
submit the names of candidates to be placed on the party
lists. The parties will submit the names to each Governorate
Electoral Office (GEO) in the provinces in which the parties
will run. Mitchell said that UNAMI plans to be present at
each GEO during this critical process in order to ensure it
goes smoothly. Candidate names will be submitted to the
De-Ba'athification Committee for vetting. The Committee will
have ten days from date of receipt to disallow any candidate.
By the end of October the National Joint Security Plan must
be finalized. MNF-I is working closely with the Supreme
Council for Election Security on this project which will,
inter alia, establish the locations of polling centers. Also
during this time, IHEC will need to determine the number of
seats for each provincial council. The election law
established the number of seats on each council as 25 for the
first 500,000 citizens in each province, with one seat added
for each 200,000 additional citizens. IHEC must use the
population numbers provided by the most recent Public
Distribution System (PDS) database.

NOVEMBER
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4. (C) On or about November 5, IHEC will conduct a
televised ballot lottery to determine the position of each
party list on the ballot in each province. It is unclear
whether they will also use the lottery to determine the
position of the names within the list. There is the
possibility a province the size of Baghdad could have 30,000
candidates distributed among 512 parties. The Exhibition and
Challenge Period for the provisional voters list will take
place November 5-12, which will include the addition of
approximately 700,000 new voters representing Iraqi youth who
will turn 18 in 2009. Voters who updated their information
during the voter registration update period may check to see
that their information was updated correctly. Also,
challenges may be made to names on the voter registry, such
as reporting a neighbor has died or moved. These challenges
will be investigated, and a final voter registry will be
printed later in the year. On November 24, accreditation of
observers, agents and the media will begin and will run
through January 22. IHEC has extended invitations to
international observers such as the Arab League, the EU and
the Carter Center, but has not had any responses. IHEC will
not provide security for observers, which may serve as a
disincentive for them to come. Finally, on November 30, 60
days before January 31, 2009, the Council of Ministers will
announce the date of the election. This allows for the
campaign period to begin.

DECEMBER

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5. (C) The campaign period will run from December 1 through
January 29. IHEC will begin training polling center staff on
December 3. The training will continue until January 26, and
UNAMI is expecting approximately 300,000 workers to be
trained and plans on utilizing teachers, principals and
members of the Iraqi bar association (schools will serve as
polling stations). IHEC has prepared an MOU for these
groups, but nothing has been signed yet. On December 8, IHEC
will begin its Get Out the Vote (GOTV) media campaign which
will continue after the election, through February 23, to
explain the vote tally and challenge period before certifying
the results of the election. Mitchell identified voter
outreach as a critical part of the elections preparation
process and said it would be a key focus on UNAMI's
engagement with IHEC. (Note: DRL-funded programs
implemented by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and
the International Republican Institute (IRI),working in
coordination with UNAMI, will supplement GOI public outreach
programs by targeting specific communities, including women,
youth, internally displaced persons as well as ethnic and
religious minorities. These programs will include
television, radio, and print media products as well as
campaigns delivered by indigenous Iraqi NGOs. End Note.)


6. (C) Ballot printing needs to begin no later than
December 16. Because of the open list system, the ballots
will be very large (perhaps the size of a phonebook in a
small town),and UNAMI believes it will take approximately
five weeks to print them. The printing needs to be completed
by January 14 to provide distribution time out to the polling
centers. As with the voter registration list, ballots will
also be printed out of country. IHEC must determine the
ballot format before tenders can be released, and this could
be a challenge. One option, which would be the easiest to
print and tally, is the "two tick" system where a voter will
make one mark for the party, then choose one candidate from
that party's list. This could confuse the voter who thinks
he or she is voting twice, and may cross party lines on the
ballot. In addition, minority representation affects ballot
design. If the CoR establishes minority set-aside seats on
provincial councils, a special list of minority candidates
will need to be included on the ballot. If the CoR delays in
making this decision until after candidate registration
concludes, it will be difficult to add minority lists to the
ballot. IHEC is addressing this issue by requesting
religious/minority affiliation on the candidate registration
form, which will enable it to cull the minority registrants
to develop a minority list in each province, if needed.
December 27-January 21, IHEC will finalize special voting
procedures. Detainees, VIPs in the International Zone,
police who will be guarding polling centers and hospital
patients will all need a way to vote without traveling to a
polling center.

JANUARY-FEBRUARY
--------------


7. (C) IHEC's Tally Center will open on January 5. This
will be the nerve center of IHEC in the run-up to the
election. After the election, IHEC will allocate seats and
determine who will fill the women's (and possibly minority)
quota seats. It may also act as overflow office space as
repairs to the fire-damaged sections of the IHEC office will
not be completed before election day. January 15-19 the
printer will ship the ballots to the four GEO warehouses. By
January 26, IHEC and the SCES, in consultation with MNF-I,
will complete the security plan and fortify the polling
centers. Election day will be January 31. Votes will be
counted at local polling centers rather than at GEOs or IHEC
headquarters. This will reduce the likelihood of fraud, as
there has always been the risk of ballots being tampered with
during transit to other locations for final counting.
Provisional results will be announced quickly. In 2005
results were not announced for over six weeks, which fueled
rumors of election tampering. UNAMI expects IHEC to announce
certified final results on February 23, but much of this
depends on the number and severity of fraud allegations.
Mitchell said UNAMI would be very involved in the dispute
resolution process and had recently hired an international
expert to work full time on the issue. She was confident
effective complaint mechanisms would be in place in time for
the elections, but cited a lack of capacity in IHEC's legal
department as well as the fact that the department's offices
were destroyed in an electrical fire in August as a
significant challenge.

DELAY ON TIMELINE STILL POSSIBLE
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8. (C) One of Mitchell's biggest concerns is another fire
delaying the timeline. The fire at IHEC in August was caused

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by an over-taxed electrical system. IHEC staff that was
located on the third floor where the fire occurred have been
re-located to the second floor. This overcrowding is
over-taxing that floor's electrical system. MNF-I has
volunteered to bring the Army Corps of Engineers to the IHEC
to assess its electrical system and provide assistance to
reduce the risk of fire.
CROCKER