NINEWA PROVINCIAL ELECTION RESULTS NOT DIRECTLY

S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 04 BAGHDAD 000719

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/15/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL TU IZ
SUBJECT: NINEWA PROVINCIAL ELECTION RESULTS NOT DIRECTLY
RELEVANT FOR RESOLUTION OF DIBS; CREDIBLE SUB-DISTRICT
ELECTIONS MAY REQUIRE AGREEMENT ON CENSUS

REF: BAGHDAD 578

Classified By: PMIN Robert S Ford for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: Ninewa's January 31 provincial election
results may be a starting point for discussions on the
resolution of the disputed internal boundaries issue but
should not be considered a de facto Article 140
referendum. The largest minority in the DIBs region, the
Yezidis, returned a mixed result: support for the Kurdish
"Fraternity" list, but also a clear preference for Yezidi
candidates over Sunni Kurds. Only some 51,000 voters cast
ballots for the three quota seats (Christian, Yezidi and
Shebak); the political preferences of the second largest
confessional minority, Christians, cannot be discerned from
the available data; the same applies to the Shebak.
Ninewa Turkmen clearly identify politically with the Iraqi
Turkman Front (ITF),which fell just short of winning a
seat. Highly successful provincial elections
notwithstanding, conditions in Ninewa Province are not,
and likely will not be, in place for similarly credible
district and sub-district elections in the middle of

2009. The voter registration system based on ration cards
is an inadequate basis for the process; limits on free
political activity in areas of the province where single
parties dominate (Sheikan, West Mosul, Rabiya, Sinjar) is
an as-yet unaddressed impediment; and IDP voting remains
highly problematic.


2. (C) While the net impact of all the alleged fraud on 31
January - even if all true - would not significantly alter
the results, similar election irregularities would have a
magnified effect in many of the district and sub-district
elections in the DIBs region. We need IRI and NDI working
directly in Ninewa to build political and governance
capacity. While some Ninewans have participated in their
training activities, their absence from Ninewa itself so far
has resulted in a lost opportunity to make a greater
contribution to political process strengthening in the
province. We need their expertise in Mosul. End summary.

The Geography of the Ninewa DIBs region
--------------


3. (S) The disputed internal boundaries (DIBs) region in
Ninewa stretches from Sinjar in the west, along the
northern portion of the province, down to Makhmour in the
east. The exception is the western Ninewa Rabiya region,
which is inhabited by Shammar Arabs. By our estimate, some
500,000 to 750,000 people live in the DIBs region, to
include Yezidi, Christians, Shebak, Kurds and Arabs. Not
even the most ardent Sunni Arab politicians who vow to
defend the borders of Ninewa can actually describe them; some
GOI maps show Agrah (east of Shaykhan) and Faida
(north of Mosul Lake) as part of Dahuk; some maps show
Makhmour as part of Irbil. For its part, the KRG practices
cartographic aggression by disseminating maps that lay claim
to the entire DIBs region, including parts that are a
surprise to many Kurds. Areas inhabited by Kurds and ethnic
and religious minorities are entirely under the de
facto control of the KRG, an authority exercised in some
places via Iraqi Army units whose leaders answer to Irbil,
in others by the Peshmerga militia and the Asa'ash secret
police. Although security and social services tend to be
better in the KRG-administered areas, our sense is that there
are limits on freedom for political activity and
major barriers to free movement by Arab Iraqis, just as there
Qmajor barriers to free movement by Arab Iraqis, just as there
are limits on political activity in homogeneous
ethnic Arab areas like West Mosul and Rabiya.

The Demography of the DIBs region
--------------


4. (C) The last census whose results are broadly accepted by
all in Ninewa took place in 1957; given the social
disruptions caused by forced relocations and arbitrary
gerrymandering at the provincial and district level,
current population ratios cannot be extrapolated from those
data. The 2009 provincial elections, in which the
overwhelming number of voters voted for parties that
represent their ethnic/religious group, may be a more
useful indicator. Of Ninewa's estimated total population of
2.5 to 3 million, the ethno-sectarian components follow:


A. Sunni Arabs account for some 55-60 percent of the
population, a figure borne out by the combined vote totals
of Al Hudba Gathering (AHG) and the Iraqi Islamic Pary (IIP).



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B. Some 25 percent of the population identify politically
with Kurdish parties, but of that figure, some two-thirds
are Yezidi, most of whom maintain a distinct social as well
as confessional identity.


C. Christians of all denominations make up 5-8 percent of
the population; Shebak and Turkmen probably account for
another 3-5 percent each.


5. (C) The Yezidi are likely the largest confessional
minority in Ninewa, numbering more than 300,000, and
centered around Shaikhan and Sinjar Districts. Others live
in homogenous villages, including in Tal Kayf, Tal Afar and
Hamdaniya Districts; there are few if any left in Mosul city.
The election results suggest to us that, among
Yezidi, confessional identity is stronger than their
linguistic and kinship ties to Sunni Kurds. The Ninewa
Fraternity List (NFL) has 12 seats in the new Council, of
whom eight are Yezidi, some of whom owe their election to
attracting votes for their individual candidacies rather than
their prominence on the NFL list. (The rest are an
Arab woman, a Shia Kurd, and two Sunni Kurds.) Of the Al
Hudba Gathering's (AHG) 19 seats, none will be held by
Yezidi. The winner of the quota seat, was an AHG-affiliated
candidate. What is clear is that most
Yezidi opted for the NFL, but selected individual Yezidi
candidates rather than the NFL's preferred slate.


6. (C) We believe there are 150-200,000 Christians of all
denominations in Ninewa Province, an historic community of
some 3,000 families in Mosul plus Christian towns and
villages mainly in Tal Kayf and Hamdaniya Districts.
(Note: Our interlocutors tell us that some 90 percent of the
Moslawi Christian families who fled have since
returned.) Christians are divided over several key issues.
Many, such as Assistant Governor Yussuf Lalo and
Hamdaniya Mayor Nisan Karumi, believe that the security and
welfare of the Christian community rests on avoiding
partisan politics altogether. To their thinking, Iraqi
Christians are a professional white collar elite who have
been imperiled by both the US invasion and subsequent
sectarian-based political organization. On the other side
are officials such as Tal Kayf Mayor Basim Belo and others in
the Assyrian Democratic Movement who maintain the need
for a discrete Christian political identity. The Christian
community is also divided on whether its interests lie with
the KRG or with Ninewa/Baghdad.


7. (C) Absent data on individual polling stations (which we
are trying to obtain from the GEO),we cannot
characterize Shebak political sentiment. One surprise in the
election was the emergence of the Iraqi Turkman Front
(ITF),which fell just short of enough votes to claim a seat
on the Council, as the clear favorite among Ninewa
Turkmen, most of whom live in, or are displaced from, Tal
Afar. Our Turkmen interlocutors invariably stress their
combined Turkic-Arabic identities and distinguish their
political agenda from the Kirkuki Turkmen.

Election results
--------------


8. (C) A total of 995,169 Ninewa voters cast their ballots
in election day, some 60 percent of registered voters.
Results (based on informal documents shared with us, please
keep close hold) of the popular vote were:

AHG: 435,595 -- This figure is combined votes for the party
list and individual candidates. Athiel el-Nejefi,
likely the future governor, received 262,539 votes, the most
Qlikely the future governor, received 262,539 votes, the most
of any individual in Ninewa and some 14 times more
than the second-place finisher. This translates into 19
seats awarded to AHG; our in-house calculation, confirmed
by IFES, reveals an error in IHEC's initial third round of
apportionment that (if final results match the preliminary
ones) could cost AHG one seat mistakenly awarded to the Iraqi
Islamic Party (IIP).

NFL: 273,458 votes -- This translates into 12 seats, of whom
eight are Yezidi. The NFL is a group of seven political
parties, including the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK),
but the dominant element is the Kurdistan Democratic Party
(KDP).

IIP: 60,191 votes -- This should translate into two seats,
but an apparent IHEC error (if not fixed) could award them
an extra seat as discussed above.

ITF: The electoral divider was 27,777 (2.94 percent of

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valid votes cast for the 34-seat general election);
although we do not yet have the final vote total, the ITF
received 2.8 percent per IHEC's February 5 press release.
Based on our imprecise demographic data, we believe that this
result shows an overwhelming Turkman identification
with the ITF.

Minority quota seats: There were 50,761 votes cast for the
three minority seats, but we do not have the vote totals by
community. The pro-KRG Ishtar List won the Christian seat by
a two-to-one majority over the Assyrian Democratic
Movement (ADM),affiliated Al Rafadin list. The anti-KRG
Shebak Democratic Assembly affiliate won that seat by a
greater than two-to-one margin. Although the vast majority
of Yezidi voted in the general election, the anti-KRG
Yezidi Movement for Reform and Progress won the quota seat
with just over half the votes.

What does this all mean?
--------------


9. (S) The first implication of these preliminary results is
that with the possible exception of Makhmour, which is
an overwhelming non-Yezidi Kurdish district, we cannot
extrapolate Art 140 attitudes on the part of the
communities in the DIBs region based on these results. The
results could be a starting point for discussions. They
should not, however, be given excessive weight in our own
thinking, or UNAMI's reporting, on the future
delineation of the Ninewa provincial boundary. (Comment:
UNAMI officials agree. Election results are only one of
more than a half-dozen "lines of inquiry," and will not be
accorded disproportionate weight, not least because UNAMI
has concerns about ballot box integrity in Kurdish dominated
DIBs areas, including northern Diyala. End Comment.)


10. (S) The second implication is that while provincial and,
later this year, national elections can take place
in Ninewa under conditions of ballot integrity and
statistically irrelevant levels of fraud, conditions are
not in place to replicate this at the district or
sub-district level. For example, the late addition of
25,000 Kurdish IDPs to the voters' list was still shy of the
electoral divider in an election where AHG won an
outright majority in the new council. Manipulation of local
elections of that magnitude, however, would skew the
results at the local level. There are limits on political
freedoms in KRG dominated areas, but the Yezidi
election is evidence there is also substantial latitude to
campaign and win contests against KRG-supported
candidates. It is harder to assess political freedoms in
Sunni Arab and Turkmen dominated areas like West Mosul, Tal
Afar, and Rabiya -- because they are dangerous, because the
international community was focused on the potential for
Kurdish irregularities, and because international observers
have a hard time distinguishing local social pressures that
produce political monocultures.


11. (S) The third implication is that while the PDS
ration-card based system of voter registration can produce
a statistically valid provincial or national result, an
updated census that also accounts for IDPs is necessary for
credible local elections. The current voter list will not
suffice for local elections; to get a legitimate result
based on a credible process, a census is essential. And for
that, there must be a national-level political
agreement on the rules for governing residence and voter
registration in areas that have been wholly or partially
Qregistration in areas that have been wholly or partially
ethnically cleansed. (Comment: It is not clear whether
there can be a political agreement on rules governing a
census prior to local elections, although we hope there will
be. Waiting for such an agreement could significantly
delay elections. End comment.).

The Need for IRI and NDI in the Province
--------------


12. (SBU) Comment: If the GOI decides to proceed with
local elections this summer and if the USG wants to help
the process, we need the resources and expertise of
USG-funded NGOs, especially IRI, NDI and IFES. While NDI
and IRI have conducted trainings with Ninewans in Erbil,
neither has visited Mosul or Ninewa in the last nine
months; NDI has worked with several political parties, but
the impact has not been sufficient in our view. IRI staff
members have not worked in the province, at least within the
last nine months. IFES visited the FOB twice: once to
meet the local GEO and once as part of a briefing to USG
personnel on the elections process. (USAID comment: IFES

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works with IHEC and its GEOs but lacks the resources to
travel the country and visit the more than 15 IHEC offices.
Instead, it works with the GEO office of IHEC and provides
training, capacity building, and systems design and
development from Baghdad. End Comment). Our work in the
field of democracy and governance has been handicapped
by IRI and NDI's inability to work inside Ninewa Province.
We believe, for example, that USG-funded NGOs could make
much more robust contributions to political party capacity
building in Ninewa. These critical organizations cannot
do this Ninewa work in Erbil. Although it is only 50 miles
away, it may as well be the dark side of the moon for many
parties. PRT Ninewa has a standing offer to IRI, NDI and
IFES: we will transport them to the FOB on the same air
and ground assets that we use. We will house and feed them
on the FOB; we will fold them into our own military
movement team; and we will provide office space with internet
connectivity. We will use our political capital
with all parties to get them to work with the NED
organizations, although we will be pushing on an open door.
We are not asking IRI, NDI and IFES to take any risks beyond
that which the PRT takes on a daily basis; however, if they
insist on taking less and staying in Erbil, it robs us of the
tools needed to do our job. (Embassy comment: we have
spoken to NDI and IRI about the importance of expanding links
with Ninewa. Both organizations have limited their direct in
Ninewa for security reasons, but we anticipate that
representatives from both will visit Mosul in the coming
weeks to explore opportunities to meet the PRT's concerns.
End Comment).

BUTENIS