WASHINGTON, 28 January 2005 — President George Bush has predicted this weekend’s elections in Iraq would be a “grand moment” in the country’s history despite a deadly campaign of violence by insurgents eager to derail the vote.
On Sunday, Iraqi national elections will be held throughout the country, and a senior State Department official called the elections “a remarkable historical event,” while he acknowledged voting will require “courage” by the Iraqis.
“As far as I know, this is the first election in modern history where results are uncertain and cannot be predicted in advance,” said the senior official. “The Palestinian elections had some fluidity, but this has total fluidity and no one knows what the final election will be. The results are entirely in the hands of the population.”
Over 14 million Iraqis have registered to vote at 6,000 voting centers across Iraq, he said. Iraqis living abroad have also registered to vote in 14 other countries.
“Recent polling indicates that 80 percent of the registered voters want to vote throughout Iraq. Even in Sunni areas 50 percent say they want to vote,” he told a handful of journalists during a special background briefing organized by the Washington-based Foreign Press Center.
Sunday’s national elections will choose from 256 political parties composed of 19,000 candidates who are running for the National Assembly, the Provincial Councils and the Kurdistan National Assembly. “All have taken the challenge and are risking their lives by running for office,” said the official, who just returned from Baghdad.
“By removing Saddam Hussein from power, the Iraqi political status quo was destroyed. We are now are trying to put together a new political equation, in which Shiite and Kurds will pay an important role.”
On Jan. 30, Iraqis will elect a 275-member Transitional National Assembly (TNA), provincial councils for each of Iraq’s provinces, and a Kurdistan Regional Government.
The TNA will then elect the Presidency Council, consisting of a President and two Vice Presidents. The Presidency Council must then select a Prime Minister and approve his selection of cabinet ministers.
Outlining the steps that will follow, the official said the TNA must also write Iraq’s permanent constitution and submit it to the Iraq people in a referendum for approval by October 2005.
After the draft constitution is put to referendum in October and once it is ratified, a new election will be held under the guidelines established in the constitution. At this point — and one must also assume if all runs smoothly — a gradual transfer of authority from the coalition forces to the Iraqis will occur.
But — and this is a big but — if only three provinces fail to ratify the constitution, then the process must begin again.
The official, who speaks fluent Arabic, said this clause was originally a Kurdish demand. “Now the Kurds and Shia are very happy with the process, but the Sunni are uneasy about the process.”
“It has become increasingly clear that three Sunni provinces could block the constitution, so whoever writes the constitution must take the Sunni concerns into account,” explained the senior State Department official.
Asked how one can have fair elections under occupation, the official said: “Our intention is to leave Iraq...the president has repeated this over and over again. There will not be permanent US bases in Iraq.”
