All parties that are not from the religious Shia coalition or Kurdish parties are doubting the legitimacy of the Iraqi election preliminary results, and despite the title of this Washington Post article, it’s not just the Sunnis. Reading deeper, it’s independent Sunni parties, ex-PM Allawi’s multi-confessional secular list, and others. Even Moqtada al-Sadr, who allied his list with the UIA! They all have one thing in common: receiving many less seats than expected according to preliminary results. But, in fact, no preliminary results were expected as it was supposed to take two weeks to count the votes. According to this report by Omar, results in Baghdad gave the religious Shia UIA 1,400,000 votes, but soon revised that number down by 100,000. Yes, an entire 100,000 votes in one feel swoop. What the hell is going on?

You can see the report at the Commission’s website, here.

It looks to me like the vote counting is malleable as far as it needs to be, defying months of polling and analysis that marked up to a 50% decrease in the power of the UIA. Four parties left the UIA, more secular and and liberal and cross-confessional parties with popular leaders opened up, Sunni parties joined the race, and Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani didn’t endorse the UIA as it did last time. While everyone expected the UIA to have the most votes when compared to every other party, many reports saw their support dropping by up to half. So, what the hell is going on?

Though I believe the nation’s first constitutional parliamentary elections that were inclusive of the Sunnis was a huge step forward in defeating the insurgency, it can only be so if the parliament is considered legitimate. However, as I warned on the day of the election, politics is power and the UIA is concerned with maintaining it. Voter fraud is entirely possible in a country like Iraq, as it is in many other countries in the region, and it likely occurred to some extent. That extent will have to be determined, if it ever is. And if investigations cannot be carried out in an extensive, transparent, and honest manner, then it will be another tell-tale sign of the country’s pervasive problem with corruption. Here’s what I wrote on election day:

I am especially concerned about domination of the Interior Ministry by the Shiite party The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which is connected to the Iran-linked militia The Badr Corp that basically dominates the south of the country. Reports that a truckload of forged ballots coming in from Iran, though denied by this same department, should be looked upon critically. In a country whose worst problem is corruption, voter fraud is not entirely unlikely, and I would venture a guess that it is the most likely in the south of Iraq where everything passes through the hands of the Badr Corp. Monitors will need to have eyes like hawks, and election complaints will need to be thoroughly investigated and honestly concluded so that any doubts as to the legitimacy of the new government within mainstream Iraqi society are diminished.

I do not expect this to be a problem throughout the entire country, but I think that it is something worth looking out for in areas where there are militia troops that intimidate the populous and harass the developing civil society.

This, if proven correct, wouldn’t be the first time that the UIA has pulled something out of its bag of dodgy tricks. Before the October referendum, they amended the TAL charter to change the definition of the word “voter” so that the draft constitution would be impossible to defeat, prompting a backlash by Sunni groups and the United States.

It shouldn’t be strange to hear then that complaints alleging fraud in Badr Corp controlled areas are surfacing, because most likely they’re true. They have infiltrated all aspects of the south’s security and government apparatus, effectively corrupting it in the interests of the UIA from top to bottom. They even control the
Interior Ministry. It’s no wonder there seems to be a prevailing sense of something wrong on the streets of Baghdad as the preliminary results come out. Namely that nobody was expecting, under normal circumstances, for the UIA to do so well. I don’t think it’s a coincidence, however.

This reminds me of a paper I wrote a couple months back about developing Iraq’s constitution. I actually argued for a consociational system similar to Lebanon’s right now instead of the majoritarian system that was ratified. I think the still-tribalistic nature of Iraqi politics will be a problem for how democracy works in the country and a mandate of power-sharing between the major groups would be the best way to serve as a transition toward full democracy.

The UIA has so far shown its tendency toward abusing its position of power. Will the allegations prove true, or will they even be thoroughly investigated? Does this dash the hope we had of an ending insurgency? We will have to see. I don’t have much confidence that it will be resolved in a timely manner.

UPDATE: Omar updates us with further information on the betrayal by the election commission. This is a must read.

Reading the results in some detail on al-Sabah this morning, some of the numbers caught my attention and I????????m talking here about the number of votes achieved by local small lists or individual candidates in the southern provinces. The numbers I read were simply ridiculous and here are a few examples from Maysan:

-Lawyer Abdulwahid al-Lami is from the Lami tribe, the biggest in a province that is run by tribal relations. This candidate won 5 votes, yes 5 votes!
This means this man didn????????t even get the votes of his own family???????it doesn????????t make sense. It is as if the man paid 1 million dinar for each vote since the registration fee for candidacy is 5 million dinars. Heh.

-Sheikh Raheem al-Sa????????idi was also running from Maysan and he????????s a local sheikh of a big tribe that has many thousands of members in the south. This sheikh won 17 votes only!
A usual sheikh is married to at least 3 wives and has dozens of children, brothers and cousins and this one won 17 votes only!

The reason why such numbers are totally ridiculous is because for any party or candidate to register, the commission asks them to bring 500 signatures from supporters!

It is clear that many parties and candidates were marginalized and betrayed by the election commission.
What the commission announced in the above update is just a futile attempt to relieve the growing tension in Iraq.
It is obvious now that the Sh????????eat-Kurdish dominated commission which we hoped would act with integrity and transparency closed an eye on the violations committed by the Kurdish and religious She????????at parties.

The Iraqi list of Allawi in another reaction said that they commission received 23 alerts of ???????Red Flag??????? complaints which represent the highest level of violations, a spokesman of the list said they will obstruct the formation of the new government if the commission ignored those complaints.

I hope anyone who is doubting the corruption wildly apparent in the commission just had their rose tinted glasses cracked.