Some Just Voted for Food

Inter Press Service | January 31, 2005
By Dahr Jamail

BAGHDAD - Voting in Baghdad was linked with receipt of food rations, several voters said after the Sunday poll.

Many Iraqis said Monday that their names were marked on a list provided by the government agency that provides monthly food rations before they were allowed to vote.

”I went to the voting centre and gave my name and district where I lived to a man,” said Wassif Hamsa, a 32-year-old journalist who lives in the predominantly Shia area Janila in Baghdad. ”This man then sent me to the person who distributed my monthly food ration.”

Mohammed Ra'ad, an engineering student who lives in the Baya'a district of the capital city reported a similar experience.

Ra'ad, 23, said he saw the man who distributed monthly food rations in his district at his polling station. ”The food dealer, who I know personally of course, took my name and those of my family who were voting,” he said. ”Only then did I get my ballot and was allowed to vote.”

”Two of the food dealers I know told me personally that our food rations would be withheld if we did not vote,” said Saeed Jodhet, a 21-year-old engineering student who voted in the Hay al-Jihad district of Baghdad.

There has been no official indication that Iraqis who did not vote would not receive their monthly food rations.

Many Iraqis had expressed fears before the election that their monthly food rations would be cut if they did not vote. They said they had to sign voter registration forms in order to pick up their food supplies.

Their experiences on the day of polling have underscored many of their concerns about questionable methods used by the U.S.-backed Iraqi interim government to increase voter turnout.

Just days before the election, 52 year-old Amin Hajar who owns an auto garage in central Baghdad had said: ”I'll vote because I can't afford to have my food ration cut...if that happened, me and my family would starve to death.”

Hajar told IPS that when he picked up his monthly food ration recently, he was forced to sign a form stating that he had picked up his voter registration. He had feared that the government would use this information to track those who did not vote.

Calls to the Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI) and to the Ministry of Trade, which is responsible for the distribution of the monthly food ration, were not returned.

Other questions have arisen over methods to persuade people to vote. U.S. troops tried to coax voters in Ramadi, capital city of the al-Anbar province west of Baghdad to come out to vote, AP reported.

IECI officials have meanwhile 'downgraded' their earlier estimate of voter turnout.

IECI spokesman Farid Ayar had declared a 72 percent turnout earlier, a figure given also by the Bush Administration.

But at a press conference Ayar backtracked on his earlier figure, saying the turnout would be nearer 60 percent of registered voters.

The earlier figure of 72 percent, he said, was ”only guessing” and ”just an estimate” that had been based on ”very rough, word of mouth estimates gathered informally from the field.” He added that it will be some time before the IECI can issue accurate figures on the turnout.

”Percentages and numbers come only after counting and will be announced when it's over,” he said. ”It is too soon to say that those were the official numbers.”

Where there was a large turnout, the motivation behind the voting and the processes both appeared questionable. The Kurds up north were voting for autonomy, if not independence. In the south and elsewhere Shias were competing with Kurds for a bigger say in the 275-member national assembly.

In some places like Mosul the turnout was heavier than expected. But many of the voters came from outside, and identity checks on voters appeared lax. Others spoke of vote-buying bids.

The Bush Administration has lauded the success of the Iraq election, but doubtful voting practices and claims about voter turnout are both mired in controversy.

Election violence too was being seen differently across the political spectrum.

More than 30 Iraqis, a U.S. soldier, and at least 10 British troops died Sunday. Hundreds of Iraqis were also wounded in attacks across Baghdad, in Baquba 50km northeast of the capital as well as in the northern cities Mosul and Kirkuk.

The British troops were on board a C-130 transport plane that crashed near Balad city just northwest of Baghdad. The British military has yet to reveal the cause of the crash.

Despite unprecedented security measures in which 300,000 U.S. and Iraqi security forces were brought in to curb the violence, nine suicide bombers and frequent mortar attacks took a heavy toll in the capital city, while strings of attacks were reported around the rest of the country.

As U..S. President George W. Bush saw it, ”some Iraqis were killed while exercising their rights as citizens.”

HOLY SHIT.

Yeah, I gotta call bullshit here. Too many stories about this election have come out to have this one be buried for a couple of days. Besides, look at the last line of the article, it kind of tells everyone where the author stands.

as long as it gets them to the polls

I mean, even I find this hard to believe, but I'd like to hear someone disprove it.

Just because the author has a bias doesn't mean these Iraqis weren't made to vote if they wanted food rations.

I'd rather see someone prove it. A second story maybe? There were reporters all over Iraq that day. Not one thought this was a worthy story?

fair enough.

Yeah I am going to have to wave the bullshit flag on this one as well. I never thought the election would go this well, and I to be pleasantly surprised in this manner really fills me with renewed optomism.

I wish we got snacks for voting here. Actually, I can think of a lot of ways to make voting better in the U.S.: comfy couches (you could take a number and sit instead of standing in line), TVs, beer (maybe just after, but before would be fine w/ me too), young, naked poll workers. Why are we not trying some of this stuff?

Because the country didn't break out into all out civil war on the 30th that's a sign it went well? I'm yet to hear any realistic numbers on voter turnout. I don't watch cable news so maybe that's where I'm missing all this great news. But the canidates were secret up until what last week? How is this that great for the Iraqi people? And how do you figure they went well?

They didn't go well, you are right.

The fact that the matter is Al Jezerra and the Associated Press both confirm that 94% of the elgible population voted (a story which was corroborated by those fascists at NPR and *gasp* cable news!). Allow me to be optomistic because these people were forced to vote (and you have provided no valid evidence of bribery either) they did so despite the fact that their very lives had been repeatedly threatened by terrorists, despite the fact that everyone on earth expected this event degenerate into anarchy. To assume that these citizens of Iraq are not civilized enough to be capable of self-government, or to rejoice in insurgency simply because it gives the United States a black eye is fucking absurd. Remove every other nation from this equation, these people are making a valiant effort at progress and you are trivializing it. I'd call you an asshole but you aren't worthy of the title.

I also heard from someone that they read this off of the Michael Moore Website. Not only is Moore trying to desperatly prove Bush wrong and Ted Kennedy right, but he is also pissing on those brave iraqis who voted! Nice going Mike!

Ted Kennedy?

--PunkDavid

Hah! I'm an asshole because I'm trivializing the elections? I've been asking questions in the Iraqi Election thread since page 2, with NO response. I've posted articles stating these elections to be a complete fraud, not only with who was "elected" but how many were eligable to vote. You give no numbers, except your bullshit rhetoric about optimism.



So how many were eligible? Outta 25 million in the country?

This is still a country in complete anarchy. Elections don't change that. Nor does it change the fact that we will be there for the next 6 years minimum.

This very well may be a step in the direction of getting a corrupt puppet "leader" in power to listen to the U.S. Government in a way that it comes off looking like the Iraqi people chose him... Give me a fuckin' break. You even know who Allawi is? Nor do the Iraqi's.

EDIT:

Iraq's electoral commission said it believed that turnout among the estimated 14-million eligible Iraqi voters appeared higher than the 57 percent, or roughly 8-million, predicted before Sunday's poll. Official turnout figures were not yet available.
--Information from the Associated Press and Washington Post was used in this report.

http://www.comedycentral.com/mp/play.jh ... 10016.html

About 2 minutes in...

If it's true, it's not a big shock. I mean, what percentage of Americans voted in the last election solely because they wanted to ban gay marriage?

or even sadder, how many people registered to vote soley because they were at a concert?

registering to and voting in an election for food seems much better than hearing DMB or Bushleaguer, terra aside

I think we are all just jealous because Iraq's election went smoother than ours...

Or saddest of all, voting for a candidate that you know nothing about simply because you think the two main candidates are jerks.

Or you could do like Iraq, and go vote for the sake of voting, even though you have absolutely no idea who any of the candidates are or what they stand for.

--PunkDavid