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UN official says Iraqi elections credible; Chalabi defeated at polls
(AP)
Updated: 2005-12-29 10:21
A senior U.N. official said that Iraq's parliamentary elections were credible
and the results should stand, angering Sunni Arabs who have taken to the streets
demanding a new vote.
The U.N. endorsement, which came Wednesday after opposition groups demanded
international intervention, was likely to deflate their calls for the elections
to be canceled. It also was likely to move Sunni Arabs and secular Shiites
closer to the bargaining table ahead of final results, expected to be announced
next week.
Preliminary results, which gave a big lead to the ruling Shiite religious
bloc, also indicated that Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, a former
Washington insider, will not be re-elected to the new 275-member parliament, his
office said.
Before the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Chalabi, then living in exile,
was a favorite of the U.S. Defense Department and the U.S. Congress. A secular
Shiite, he fell from grace after his claims that Saddam possessed weapons of
mass destruction were discredited.
American forces last year raided Chalabi's Baghdad office after he was
accused of giving U.S. intelligence to Iran, but the 60-year-old consummate
insider had slowly been working his way back. Pegged as a possible prime
minister before the December 15 elections, he met last month in Washington with
Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice.
Craig Jenness, a United Nations official
addresses a news conference organized by the Independent Electoral
Commission of Iraq, or IECI, in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday Dec. 28, 2005,
saying that the U.N.-led international election assistance team found the
Dec. 15 contested elections for Iraq's new parliament as credible.
[AP] | The United Nations official, Craig Jenness,
said at a news conference organized by the Independent Electoral Commission of
Iraq that his U.N.-led international election assistance team found the
elections to be fair.
"The United Nations is of the view that these elections were transparent and
credible," said Jenness, a Canadian electoral expert.
Jenness said the number of complaints was less than one for every 7,000
voters. About 70 percent of Iraq's 15 million voters went to the polls.
His remarks represented crucial support for Iraqi election commission
officials, who refused opposition demands to step down. They, too, said the
elections were free and fair and that they would deal with the few instances of
fraud and rigging of ballot boxes.
"No wide, premeditated and systematic fraud was noticed," IECI official
Safwat Rashid said.
The Bush administration and many Iraqi officials hope the elections will lead
to a broad-based government that will include minority Sunni Arabs as well as
secular Shiites such as former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.
"In our view, all communities of Iraq have won in these elections, all will
have a strong voice in parliament. We hope the elections will be the start of a
new process of strength and unity in Iraq," Jenness said.
One step in that direction came in western Anbar province, where a
high-ranking Interior Ministry official made a rare appearance in Ramadi,
considered a hot spot for Sunni-led insurgents.
Fahqer Maryosh, the No. 3 official in the ministry, met with local and U.S.
military officials to discuss the reestablishment of the Iraqi police in the
province, Marine Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool said.
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