BAGHDAD,
March 28, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Two months
after an election described as “historic,” a new United Nations
report revealed irregularities in the legislative election process.
The
report, quoted by the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said
the election was far from being competitive, Reuters news agency
reported Sunday, March 27.
Money
also played a key role in the election with the absence of regulations
on the sources of campaign funds.
The
UN report also criticized election officials for failing to put a
ceiling on spending, a matter that did injustice to some cash-strapped
candidates.
Election
officials, it added, have not taken concrete steps to guarantee
accountability and transparency in the spending process.
The
document further said that candidates were not given enough time to
market their platforms or even to introduce themselves to the voters.
Iraqi
pundits had said that most of the voters were left in the dark as they
knew nothing about the more than 7,000 candidates.
They
said that empty rhetoric and sloganeering were the pivots of
campaigning, ignoring the people’s social woes like the towering
unemployment, insecurity and US-led occupation.
Braving
bombing attacks, millions of Iraqis flocked to some 5,700 polling
stations and elected a 275-seat interim National Assembly.
Gov’t
in Abeyance
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“God willing, the government could witness its birth in the coming few days,” said Jaafari. (Reuters)
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After
two months of painstaking negotiations, Iraq’s long-awaited
government could see the light of day within days.
Iraq’s
likely next prime minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari said an agreement on the
government was imminent.
“God
willing, the government could witness its birth in the coming few
days,” the Shiite politician as quoted as saying by the Associated
Press.
Al-Jaafari
cautioned against rushing the process, saying: ‘‘We need to
remember that the era of democratic dialogue is different from the era
of the dictatorship practices.”
Meanwhile,
Shiite and Kurdish officials assigned with forming the new government
agreed to hold the second session of the National Assembly on later on
Monday to elect a speaker and two deputies.
Mariam
Al-Rais, representing the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) which
captured 151 seats in the parliament, said Kurdish leader Jalal
Talabani will be the new president and Jaafari the prime minister.
“Three
Shiites have been nominated for the vice president post and four
Sunnis for the second vice president,” Reuters quoted Rais as
saying.
US
officials in Iraq have voiced reservations over some of the names put
forward to lead the defense and interior ministries in the next
government, said UIA member Fawaz Al-Jarba.
“The
American side has stayed away from the forming of the new government,
but it has reservations over candidates that have contact or are in
some way being influenced by certain neighboring countries like Syria
and Iran,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“I
have heard them express these reservations,” asserted Jarba, saying
he is a candidate to be the next speaker of parliament, vice president
or defense minister.
Both
Shiites and Kurds are hoping figures like Jarba can rally the support
of Sunnis.
The
majority of Iraq’s Sunni powers, along with other communist and
secular powers, shunned the legislative election.
Only
smaller Sunni groups have participated in the vote such as those led
by veteran statesman Adnan Pachachi and incumbent interim President
Ghazi Al-Yawer.
The
Sunnis, however, secured 20 seats, the Kurds 77, while outgoing
premier Iyad Allawi got 40 seats.
