SPECIAL NEEDS VOTING IN THE KRG - PEACEFUL DAY,

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 001998 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/23/2019 TAGS: IZ KDEM PGOV SUBJECT: SPECIAL NEEDS VOTING IN THE KRG - PEACEFUL DAY, HIGH TURNOUT REF: BAGHDAD 1706 Classified By: Deputy Political Counselor Steve Walker for reason 1.4(d ). ¶1. (C) On January 23, roughly 120,000 voters participated in Special Needs Voting for the Kurdistan Regional elections. This day was set aside to ensure that members of the KRG security forces, prisoners, and hospital patients all had a chance to cast their ballots for ahead of the regular election on July 25. Polling sites, chosen specifically to serve these special populations, were open in Erbil, Dohuk, Sulaimaniyah, Ninewa, Diyala, and Baghdad. U.S. election monitor teams visited sites in four of these six provinces, and reported a calm day with strong turnout by Peshmerga forces. The United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) also fielded election observer teams in all three provinces of the Kurdistan Region. The European Union sent monitors to sites in Erbil and Baghdad. While these various monitor teams observed some minor irregularities during the day, we have not heard of any material complaints. Ballots from Special Needs Voting will be tallied along with the regular votes starting on July 26. ¶2. (SBU) Three teams of Embassy Baghdad officers, seven election monitors in total, visited four polling stations in each of the three KRG provinces. The teams, which were a mix of Embassy officers and officers from the Erbil Regional Reconstruction Team, reported orderly voting and few inconsistencies during the day. According to monitors in Erbil, the polling stations were very crowded with hundreds of Peshmerga soldiers waiting in the hot sun to cast their ballots. At one station in Sulaimaniyah, the U.S. monitors report that police had to keep soldiers from jumping over the walls of the station to get out of the sun as they waited. In Baghdad, polling stations were calm as groups of Peshmerga assigned to jobs in the capital quietly undertook their civic duty. ¶3. (SBU) In all reports, U.S. election monitors noted that the officials of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) appeared to be organized and efficient, ensuring that the polling stations were run smoothly and according to the rules. Monitors saw political party agents, mainly from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) parties, at the polling sites visited. Representatives of the Change List party were observing the vote in Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, but absent at the sites visited in Dohuk and Baghdad (Ref A). Domestic observers from the SHAMS network (a partner of the National Democratic Institute) were present at many stations; they will issue their final report on the KRG elections in the coming weeks. FORD