NINEWA ON THE EVE OF ELECTIONS: COUNTERING

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 BAGHDAD 000162

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: NINEWA ON THE EVE OF ELECTIONS: COUNTERING
THREATS TO THE SECURITY AND INTEGRITY OF THE PROCESS AND
PROMOTING THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

Classified By: Acting Deputy Chief of Mission. Robert S. Ford.
Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

This is a joint PRT, MND-N and 3-1 Cav message.


1. (S) Summary: Credible provincial elections are key to
creating the conditions for sustainable political and
economic development in Ninewa Province. They are also
critical to the resolution of the disputed internal
boundaries (DIBs) issue as well as to Arab-Kurd relations
within Ninewa and across the provincial border. Along with
local elections later in the year, they will help determine
the future course of minority communities. Finally, they are
vital for turning the remarkable but temporary security gains
of CF and their ISF partners into lasting Iraqi-led stability
In Ninewa. If the January 31 provincial election in Ninewa
is regarded as legitimate and credible, recent security gains
can be consolidated into lasting political, economic and
essential service upgrades. An election result accepted by
all parties can help further isolate civilians from the
insurgency, decrease pressure on vulnerable minority
communities, and expand the space for political compromise on
sensitive issues like the DIBs areas. MND-N, 3-1 Cav and
PRT Mosul are working together on a security plan for polling
sites, investigating allegations of pre-election voter
intimidation, and warning all parties against attempts at
vote manipulation. On election day, PRT will deploy 11
observer teams to cover 19 of the province's most politically
sensitive sub-districts. MND-N is facilitating Iraqi
movement of ballots and other polling material and the
distribution of voter education material. Without credible
public opinion polling, or even broadly accepted demographic
information, forecasting a winner is impossible. The key
questions are who speaks for the Sunni Arab majority, and
will the Kurdish list be integrated into a future governing
coalition. End summary.


2. (S) To help ensure a process that the people of Ninewa
regard as credible and legitimate, we are taking the
following measures:

-- While the ISF, in cooperation with the Peshmerga and
other sub-national security forces, is charged with leading
security planning in the region, MND-N has played the vital
role of identifying significant deficiencies and providing
substantial logistical and strategic guidance. What has
emerged is a joint GOI-CF security plan in most of the
province, but also a tripartite mechanism for areas of Ninewa
where there is the possibility of statistically or
politically-relevant interference. Most of these areas lie
in parts of Ninewa under the de facto control of the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and reflect Sunni Arab
(and USG) concerns that widespread fraud in these areas in
2005 could be repeated.

-- ISF (IA & IPs) and CF will secure the 690 polling sites
throughout the province on a two-ring model. The inner ring
will be elements of national and local police only; the
second ring will be Iraqi army in areas under Mosul/Baghdad
control. The disputed areas will have the same arrangements,
except a negotiated percentage of Peshmerga forces will also
assist with the second ring at the 210 disputed sites
identified in areas under de facto KRG control. (Note: The
latter group of sites include most Christian, Yezidi and
Shebak communities in the province; the exception is the Tal
Afari Turkmen community.) The IA and Peshmerga have also
negotiated five joint checkpoints to secure the provincial
Qnegotiated five joint checkpoints to secure the provincial
borders. Additionally, CF will be visible and present as they
rotate through the 210 disputed area polling sites. CF will
be less visible and mostly providing a Quick Reaction Force
(QRF) at the non-disputed sites in the rest of Ninewa.

-- As part of the security plan, Ninewa's borders (including
with Syria),will be closed on election day. Registered IDPs
will vote at IHEC centers in Irbil, Dahuk, and Suleimaniya;
unregistered IDPs will not be able to vote.

-- The PRT is deploying 11 observation teams to 19
sub-districts, integrating the United Nations and
international media. Those teams will be moved by CF.
Civilian security agents , traveling with observation teams,
will be authorized to enter polling centers. (Note:
Polling Centers are off-limits to all armed personnel,
including CF and Iraqi military, except for credentialed
personal security details for international observer teams.
End Note).

-- The PRT and BCT are facilitating the arrival and dispatch
of voting materials into and from Mosul Airport. Note:

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Mosul Airport is located on FOB Diamondback but is under
Iraqi control and guarded by a UK company - Sabre -- under
contract to the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority (ICAA).
Materials are always under the armed protection of Sabre
guards, including when being off-loaded by US contractor
forklifts and on to IHEC-chartered trucks.

-- All elections material move under armed ISF escort, with
CF over-watch on the ground and in the air. Material will
move from Mosul Airport to ISF COP Lion/Courage for storage
until it is moved to three warehouses, then to 55 voter
registration centers, then out to the polling venues. After
votes are counted on site, the process will reverse itself
back to Mosul airport, always under ISF security with CF
over-watch.

-- MND-N and PRT met with International Republican Institute
(IRI) officials in Irbil. IRI is printing 250,000 voter
education pamphlets that have been promised to be delivered
to Mosul no later than January 21. Those materials will be
turned over to the ISF's Ninewa Operations Command for
distribution by Iraqi army and police units throughout the
province. IRI also promised voter education public service
announcements that we will place on Al Mosulia TV and other
stations with Ninewa viewership, as well as a 90-minute
national town hall program that we will ask Iraqi stations to
air.

-- CF and PRT are in regular contact with the Ninewa
Government Electoral Officer (GEO),Abdel Haleq Dabbagh.
When Abdel Haleq reported threats to himself and his family,
MND-N intervened with the NOC to get him an ISF personal
security detail (PSD).

-- We have all intensified our engagements with political
leaders throughout the province. We have met with most of
the 31 registered parties, but have focused on the Iraqi
Islamic Party (IIP),Al-Hudba Gathering, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party (KDP),and parties representing Christian,
Yezidi, Shebak and Turkman communities.

-- We have investigated claims of intimidation or other forms
of harassment and raised our concerns directly with KDP Vice
Governor Keshro Goran and KDP Sinjar leader Serbast
Terwanishi.

-- PRT's public diplomacy section did 10 days of training for
65 Iraqi journalists. Using trainers from George Washington
University, we focused on the mechanics of elections coverage.

-- Using the QRF mechanism, we have provided five grants to
four NGOs, with a focus on voter education in minority areas.

--------------
Election Day and the results
--------------


3. (S) Up to 1.6 million registered voters will vote in an
open-list system for parties and/or candidates for Ninewa's
37-seat Provincial Council. Once elected, the new provincial
council will elect the new Council Chair, Governor and Vice
Governor. Each position requires a two-thirds majority.
The Council is not required to select the Governor and Vice
Governor from their membership. Thirty-one political
entities are contesting the election. The political
entities vary in size from one to 34 candidates. There are
minority candidates contesting the quota seats as well as
appearing on party lists.


4. (S) Under the provisions of 2008's electoral law, seats
are awarded to lists with the most votes, but in greater
proportion than popular vote alone would indicate. The
magnitude of this effect is difficult to predict due to the
complex nature of the allocation steps used in the award
process and the large number of contesting lists; however,
Qprocess and the large number of contesting lists; however,
the fact that the award mechanisms favor the largest lists
may have a significant effect on the final balance of power
in the Ninewa provincial council, including through
disadvantaging of minority parties.


5. (S) The GEO has done a good job in placing polling venues
in such a way that voters will not have to cross into other
communities to cast their ballots. Ninewa had the highest
rates of voter registration in Iraq, and only those
registered will be handed a ballot paper. The Irbil GEO told
us that there are 64,000 registered IDPs in the three KRG
governorates, and they come from all over Iraq and are a mix
of Kurds, Arabs, Christians and others. Local KDP officials,
led by Vice Governor Keshro Goran, have called for a

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postponement of the elections in order to allow voting by
what he says are 120,000 Kurdish IDPs from pre- and
post-Saddam era caseloads. The Irbil GEO estimates this
group as numbering 13,000 families, and confirms there are no
provisions for them to vote in this election if they failed
to register for the vote in Ninewa during the registration
period.


6. (S) Sunni Arab parties, as well as minority parties
opposed to the KRG, have repeatedly raised concerns that the
KDP, the Peshmerga and the Asa'ash (KRG secret police) will
intimidate voters on election day, including through local
police on duty closest to polling venues. (Comment: Local
police in Mosul city and in the southern part of the
province are overwhelmingly Sunni Arab, however, so at most
this allegation would pertain to Kurdish-speaking or
Kurdish-controlled areas. End comment.) They have demanded
that Iraqi National police (majority Shia Arab) from outside
Ninewa staff the polling venues. Instead, there will be a
mix of local police and Emergency Response Battalion (ERB)
units; the latter have a mixed composition but are majority
Arab. The two main Sunni Arab parties told us that they have
6,000 party observers ready to deploy, and between the UN and
NDI, another 20,000 civil society observers have been trained
countrywide.

--------------
Who is going to win?
--------------


7. (S) Bearing in mind Yogi Berra's maxim that it is
difficult to make predictions, especially about the future,
we are not handicapping this race. We suspect that it will
be a de facto ethnic census, but given the lack of reliable
demographic data, we will not even speculate on that basis.
Nevertheless, the following are the key questions that we
have going into the elections:

-- Will any party be able to claim the mantle of Sunni Arab
leadership in Ninewa? Al Hudba and IIP already claim it, but
given the January 2005 Sunni Arab boycott (which the IIP
defied at great cost over the last four years),the
proposition has never been put to the test.

-- Will any single Sunni Arab party be able to govern on its
own, or will two or more Sunni Arab-based parties be able to
govern in coalition?

-- If provincial power requires coalition with non-Sunni Arab
parties, will those parties come from the Kurdish list or
minority parties opposed to the KRG?

-- Will parties with unrealistic expectations of their
support (most, if not all of them) be so disgruntled that
they turn away from the political process?

--------------
What's at stake?
--------------


8. (S) CF and ISF have lowered the rates of violence in
Ninewa by 75 percent over the last year, but it is testament
to conditions in the province that despite this remarkable
progress against the insurgency, Ninewa remains the most
violent province in Iraq. This reduction has taken place in
a political vacuum; there has been no provincial political
settlement on which to base counter-insurgency strategies and
the governing institutions of the province are widely viewed
as illegitimate. (They certainly are not representative of
Ninewa's political demography.) Progress against AQI/ISI and
other terrorist groups has also taken place in a development
vacuum; due in part to catastrophic drought over the past
four years, the economy of Ninewa has contracted at a time
when other provinces in Iraq experienced some growth.


9. (S) Elections are necessary but insufficient to political
Q9. (S) Elections are necessary but insufficient to political
and economic development to the province. Seating a
Provincial Council that represents the population is a
necessary first step. The outgoing Council has 31 of 41
seats held by the KDP and others on the Kurdish list. The
Council and Governor Duraid Kashmoula (a Sunni Arab with
strong pro-Kurdish views) have failed to deliver services to
the population and are broadly reviled outside
Kurdish-dominated areas. The progress over one year of the
Ninewa Operations Command (NOC) from six retired officers in
civilian clothes to an effective Corps-level organization
controlling 74,000 ISF personnel has not been matched by a
commensurate political development.


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10. (S) The transition zone between Arab and Kurdish Iraq
runs through northern and eastern Ninewa, a region inhabited
by a rich mosaic of linguistic and religious minorities,
including Christians of multiple denominations, Yezidi,
Shebak and Turkmen. All are being instrumentalized by
political parties (Arab, Kurdish and their own),and all face
threats from insurgents. With the exception of the Tal Afari
Turkmen, most enjoy the superior security found in areas
under de facto KRG control, although most split on the
question of identification with the KRG or Arab-majority
Ninewa. Most of these areas lie within parts of the province
that are subject to the UNAMI-led process to determine the
status of disputed internal boundaries (DIBs). If the
provincial elections process is legitimate and credible, the
results should be our first quantitative indicators of local
sentiment regarding minority views on DIBs, although the
subsequent district and sub-district elections will provide
more fine-grained data.


11. (S) One of the animating issues in the campaign has been
the presence of Kurdish security forces in Ninewa, including
IA units with Kurdish personnel, Peshmerga forces, and
members of the Asa'ash. The presence of these units within
Ninewa poses a dilemma for us: on one hand they provide
security for minority communities that would be difficult to
replicate in the near term. On the other hand, their
checkpoints and the perception that Kurdish-dominated IA
units are loyal to Irbil rather than Baghdad - coupled with
the broad perception of a US-KRG alliance - is a contributing
factor in the insurgency's staying power. There is a strong
element of anti-Kurd propaganda in the campaign. Although
Sunni Arab leaders tell us that they are criticizing the KDP
and not "our brothers the Kurds" they are dissembling.
Should Al Hudba emerge as the governing party or senior
coalition partner, Arab-Kurd relations in the province will
likely degrade further.


CROCKER