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