And then there were elections

I call it going from zero to one hundred in a matter of five minutes and a mile long dusty road. Leaving Log Base Seitz and arriving at the 10th Mountain Division headquarters down the road you may as well have been visiting a new country. The 10th Div is run by Col. Mark Milley, a tough-talking Bostonian who is as wicked smart as he is fierce.

He believes entirely in The Cause and is exceptionally articulate in sharing his view. Problem is, I think he wants people to believe just as strongly by the time you leave him, and for me that’s just not possible. As I’ve told the Col. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree, sir.” But I’m not sure he agrees.

Milley leads from the front, as they say, which means he is constantly doing “battlefield circulation” or going on patrols through the streets of Western Baghdad. He says he likes to check on his men and see for himself the workings on the city’s streets, which appears to earn him huge respect from his soldiers, and also from some Iraqis with whom he meets. My initial impression of the Col. is that he is quite skilled in dealing with Iraqi people, the result of many years and many missions in foreign countries, most recently in Afghanistan. Many of you have heard me speak in the past of inexperienced and frightened soldiers creating terrifying situations for both themselves and the Iraqis around them (much less the journalist on the sidelines witnessing the whole mess). The sheer terror of some of these kids can – and often does- inspire the very situation they’re afraid of. But Milley does none of that. He hears that Iraqis are upset at soldiers evading all traffic rules and running ramrod through intersections, so he asks his men try to follow traffic; he is calm and confident, shows respect and listens to the people around him, and as an avid reader of history and military strategy, has an amazing historical context. You may not always agree with him but you will invariably respect him.

Traveling through the streets of Baghdad, seeing familiar sights and watching citizens go about their lives as usual, is a welcome difference from Log Base Seitz. But it does bring its own… elements, which I won’t detail here.

People say that two things you should never witness being made are laws and sausage; I would add to that, elections.

The most interesting part of this embed experience is witnessing the interaction with Iraqi Police, National Guard and US military as they prepare for the January 30 election. The process is amazing but not exactly clean. I have been witnessing the logistical part, which includes one of the most important aspects of the entire event: security.

The military has been predicting an upsurge in violence around the elections, and today may be the first mark of this, but it will be the first. I say this because if you listen to Fox News you would think the entire country has been one bloody explosion for weeks on end. But up to now it’s been no more or less than usual. This isn’t a good thing, but I’m speaking relatively to put things in perspective. But today was different. Today there were two large VBIEDs (car bombs) with a total of nine casualties and one death; 4 ieds (improvised explosive devices) were discovered and control detonated;1 ied detonated, no casualties;1 grenade attack; 5 small arm fire attacks; 1 Iraqi civilian killed; and one weapons cache found, in the area of western Baghdad. Other areas experienced a similar 24 hours, including a marine helicopter crash that killed 36 people. Still, men and women are working overtime to organize for the elections, placing thousands of Iraqi Police and guardsmen at the polls. They see this event as a turning point in history, though a turn in which direction, we can’t tell.

I have agreed not to write about much of the strategizing that I’ve witnessed until after the election, but suffice it to say that the process has been remarkable – and remarkably frustrating, given the different factions attempting to come together for this election. My writing will stay pretty general compared to the last trip, much to the dismay of some friends. Sorry guys.

But I don’t have as much time to write as I thought I might have given the daily outings with various units in different parts of Baghdad. Still I did manage to pull together a story on the basic structure and process of these elections, more because I was so incredibly confused and couldn’t seem to find anyone who understood it all. The story, I might add, is no longer whether or not these elections will go forward; they will. The unknown is how they will proceed. I’ll keep you posted. Other Iraq stories are running in the Santa Fe New Mexican and Alternet.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- These days I ask every Iraqi citizen I see the same question: “Rah Tsowit?” “Are you going to vote?” The responses that surprised me most were from people who said they had no understanding of who was running or how the process works. At first I thought perhaps the individuals couldn’t read or didn’t have access to television, -- which would make sense considering it entails electricity of which there is only about 6.5 intermittent hours a day. So I went to another source… and then another. The truth is, I found very few people who understood the system completely so I made it my mission to figure out how exactly– or however exact one can get in these parts –this extraordinary election is going to work.

My first realization is that unless one has direct access to an Iraqi election official who is camped inside the International Zone, it’s difficult to get a full sense of what on earth is going to happen here. I compiled this information from a variety of sources and some of the information here may be well-known. If you’re familiar with the entire process, congratulations, you know a great deal more than roughly 27 million Iraqis.

The January 30 election in Iraq is being run by the Independence Election Commission in Iraq.

It was decided that Iraqis, aged 18 and over, will choose a 275-member Transitional National Assembly and 10 provincial councils. This law-making entity will choose its own president and two deputies and then will draft the first constitution, to be completed by August 2005 and ratified the following October. National elections are scheduled to be held in December 2005; the specific form that system will take will be decided upon and outlined in the new constitution. Voters in the northern Kurdish region will also select a new regional parliament.

There are currently 107 (111 by some reports) different parties, or lists, running in the election, designated on the ballot by entity name, symbol and number. This includes nine coalition parties, 71 straight ticket parties (Sunni, Shiite, etc.) and 27 brave individuals. This number could change as people drop out, join with other coalitions or are killed. Each list has anywhere from 12 to 275 individuals whose names are indicated -- or not – totaling more than 6,000 candidates. Many members have kept their names off of any election material for fear of retaliation/assassination. When and if voters will discover the identities of those in various parties is still a mystery. Seats in the National Assembly will be allocated depending on percentage, i.e. if a party gets 25% of the vote, its members will fill 25% percent of the seats, starting at the top of the list. Twenty-five percent of candidates are required to be female.

Some parties are well known such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) led by Abd-al-Aziz-Muhsin Mahdi al-Hakim; and some, well, I can’t find anyone who knows what the Homeland Gathering or the Loyalty for Iraq Coalition might be.

Two of the parties being more closely watched simply because of name recognition and status of the individuals would be the National Accord (330) whose leader is Dr. Ayad Allawi, Iraq’s current Prime Minister, and the Iraqi Unified Coalition. The coalition, or # 169, which is strongly Shiite and supported by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, is expected to be very successful.

Fourteen and a half million people are currently registered to vote in Iraq, the majority of these names taken from the food ration distribution list used by Saddam Hussein, which is considered to be highly accurate. The location an Iraqi went for food ration cards will generally dictate where he or she will go to vote, though specific polling locations have been kept secret even a week before the election for security reasons. Each voter will get black ink marked on his hand to ensure he votes only once. This is yet another concern to many Iraqis who would like to vote but fear being identified as one who has voted.

The two most prominent Sunni organizations still opposing the election are the Iraq Islamic Party and Association of Muslim Scholars, which have adhered to their decision to respectively withdraw and boycott the elections, claiming it will be illegitimate and a tactic to extend the occupation in Iraq. Some Sunnis asked for a deadline of US withdrawal as a condition of participating in the election, but no withdrawal date has been given. Their fatwa, or edict, has been resonant with many local Sunnis, though as the election nears and a postponement seems unlikely, Sunnis are realizing they may not be represented in the new government if they do not participate. For example, Adnan Pachachi, head of the Independent Democratic Grouping, with both Sunni and Shiite members, is somewhat reluctantly abandoning his call for a postponement and is instead now calling on all Iraqis to vote.

Safety is still a major concern of Iraqis wanting to vote, though not as much as most media would have you believe. Other concerns, such as a lack of trust and understanding of the process are more serious.

According to polls taken by an independent Iraqi polling group in recent months, an average of ten percent cited security concerns as their reason not to vote, while up to 29% cited a lack of trust in the process and another 49% had other concerns. Their findings, though far from scientific, shed light on some general trends regarding the elections.

The Iraqi pollsters went door to door in every sector of the country, conducting 30-35 minute interviews with between 4,200 and 5,000 people for the survey below. The most recent survey was conducted in January of this year.

Do you plan to vote in the upcoming elections?

NO - 4% in Aug. compared to18% in January
DON’T KNOW - 3% in Aug. compared to 10% in January
YES - 93% in August compared to 72% in January.
89% of Sunni Muslims said they would vote last Aug. compared to 47% respondents in January.
96% of Shias said they would vote in August compared to 86% in January

Intent to Vote:
If you’re not planning to vote, why? The first number is from respondents in September of 2004; the second number is from January 2005.

Because of security situation: 11- 7% said (52% of Sunni and 45% Shia cite security reasons)
Don’t trust the process: 29-22%
Don’t know the candidates: 11-10%
Because of the presence of the multinational forces 16-4%
Other reasons: 7% to 49%

When Iraqis go to vote, what do you think they will be voting for?

Prime minister: 6%
President: 18%
Don’t know/no answer: 31%
Parliament members: 33%
Candidates from political parties, which will provide Transitional National Authority members: 11%
Political Parties: 1%

Proportion that understands the election concept: 45% in January compared to 18% last November and 36% in December with no significant different between sects in terms of understanding.

Election Security:
Which would make you feel safe when you go to vote?

Iraqi Police near the polling stations: 14%
IP and Iraqi National Guard only: 35%
IP, ING and Multi National Forces: 12%
No security at all; it invites attacks: 11%

I can’t imagine how the average Iraqi is going to figure all this out; then again, US citizens, whose average voter turnout is 44 percent, can’t even educate themselves about two or three candidates, just imagine if we had 107 choices.

In the meantime, life seems to be put on hold, everyone waiting ‘ba’ad al-intikhabat’ meaning, ‘after the elections’, as one Arab news outlet noted. Events, meetings, business contracts and other decisions of import are being pushed aside, all in anticipation of this hopeful and somewhat ambivalent day, January 30.

Next the Iraqi people will begin the wait for the results of their first democratic election. This at least is something we know a thing or two about, though Iraqis have proven to be far more patient than we could ever imagine being. How long with those results take? Couldn’t tell you. Some are estimating around two to three weeks, but there’s no way to know for sure. Perhaps just the act of voting, that nebulous and unknown concept brought into known proportions, will be enough for now. Either way, it is a beginning. Whether it is a beginning of peaceful democracy or a starting shot for civil war is another unknown. We can only hope, for the sake of Iraqis, that it is the former.