Last week, following its review of documents charging fraud in
Iraq’s March 7 elections, an Iraqi court ordered a recount of
votes in Baghdad.
Iraqi Parliamentarian Mithal al-Alusi, who ran on a platform of
Iraqi relations with Israel and counter-terrorism cooperation
with other democracies, including the United States, believes
this development could produce a fair count for liberals like him
— who he thinks were shafted in March 7 elections that he
believes were corrupted by Iran and the Saudis.
But he warns that the recount should be independently monitored,
including by representatives of the United States. Otherwise, the
corruption that he believes took place in last month’s elections
will only be repeated.
“It will be a disaster if the same people who did the first
counting will do the second counting,” Alusi said.
Alusi spoke with Faraj al-Haidari, head of the Iraqi Electoral
Commission, who told him the recount will include 1,023 polling
stations out of 11,000 in Baghdad. Alusi believes those stations
where Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law bloc
did poorly have been cherry-picked for recounting so as to
benefit Maliki. So while the recount has the potential to yield a
more accurate count, it will not yield one without international
supervision, he maintains. In fact, absent real supervision by
the United Nations Security Council and the U.S.,”it [will not
be] a real recount, but a game, and the result will be a disaster
and a security problem.”
The Iraqi court’s ruling — which it handed down last Monday
after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition
submitted 4,000 documents as evidence of fraud — highlights
error on the part of the United Nations and the Obama
Administration in certifying the March 7 election, Alusi
maintains.
“This [court ruling] is proof that something was wrong with the
[March 7] election,” Alusi said. “The U.N. said the Iraqi
election was clean, and the U.S. government said the Iraqi
election was clean. Now we have it from [an] Iraqi court — there
is much proof that causes us to recount the results. That’s what
we said from the beginning. The European Commission did say it
from the beginning, too.”
Struan Stevenson, President of the European Parliament’s
Delegation for Relations with Iraq, said in a phone interview
from Scotland Friday that he believes that powers weighing in on
Iraq’s election have willfully denied serious allegations of
widespread fraud and voter intimidation.
“The U.S., the E.U., and the U.N. are like the three wise monkeys
— see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” said Stevenson.
“Any allegation that there’s been widespread fraud or
intimidation could bog them down and trap them into staying [in
Iraq.] They are covering their eyes … and saying, ‘Just come to
a decision as quickly as possible so we can get out of here.’”
Alusi says that, although the court’s mandate of a Baghdad
recount opens a window of opportunity for a more accurate count,
signs are already pointing in the direction of more fraud due to
lack of independent monitoring, especially by the U.S.
For one thing, Alusi says the Iraqi Election Commission has
announced plans to transport ballots to three different locations
for the counting, which strikes him as “not kosher.”
“If you are recounting Baghdad votes, why not in one area?” he
says.
Alusi, a Sunni, is no stranger to controversy. In 2004, as
then-culture director of the Iraqi interim government’s Office of
de-Baathification, he traveled to Israel to promote cooperation
between Iraq and the Jewish state. As payback for breaking the
taboo in Iraqi society against going to Israel, terrorists
murdered his two grown sons. Refusing to be intimidated, Alusi
stayed in Iraq, got his political party, which champions human
rights and counter-terrorism, onto the ballot, and won a seat in
the December 2005 elections.
Now he believes that he and fellow liberals like Shiite
politician Iyad Jamal al-Din are victims of fraud by forces
within Iraq who are beholden to Iran and Saudi Arabia — and who
don’t like the liberals’ straight talk about how those powers
need to stay out of Iraq.
“I heard it from my people 500 times, ‘How can America let
fascists hijack the election?’” he told me. “Simple people say,
‘This is the time to have change, to stop Iranian influence.’
“The common people say, ‘What is this? America saved Iraq for
Saudi Arabia and Iran?’
“To let this election stand … sends a bad message to normal,
ordinary people. They will ask why we should support a fight
against the fascists if the U.S. closes its eyes [to fraud]?”
Alusi maintains that ordinary Iraqis who risked their lives to
vote in the March 7 elections want to know that the count is fair
— and want the U.S. to help in ensuring it is. He appeals to
President Obama to lend U.S. oversight to the Baghdad recount.
“Mr. Obama, he is a democrat, we need him to listen,” Alusi said.
“We need you to support not just us [liberals] but also your
interests in the Middle East….America needs to continue guiding
Iraq in the right direction to have a democratic process.”
Alusi stressed that the democratic process means not just
elections, but guidance and supervision in “the values and
conduct of elections.”
“People on the street want to see America strong in Iraq,” he
said, “not in military machinery but in support of the democratic
process.” Since the recount, which is scheduled for this week,
will take at least 10 days, Alusi maintains there is still time
for the Obama Administration to articulate a position regarding
the Iraqi election and take steps to ensure the recount is
properly supervised.
“The U.S. and the U.N. can step in, they have done it in
Afghanistan,” he says. “If D.C. asks for answers, at least people
who are playing games will know there are people watching.”
