By Oliver August
Independent election monitors in Iraq have raised significant concerns over the conduct and fairness of last week's national poll.
A high-level Iraqi report obtained by The Times details violations across the country and includes evidence of the army and police interfering directly with voting on March 7. Based on testimony compiled by three non-governmental agencies, the report says that in some Iraqi provinces "security forces were urging people to vote for a specific list".
Election monitors also observed "the presence of a number of security forces even within the voting hall, which sometimes hindered the movement of voters and confused them about ensuring privacy in the voting".
The report, which was circulated among Western officials in Baghdad this weekend, will add to the impression that Iraq's second full parliamentary poll was not free and fair. A number of parties have made allegations of major fraud, although foreign diplomats say that at least some allegations are partisan attempts to discredit the poll by those likely to lose.
The independent report detailing widespread irregularities was compiled by the Tammuz Organisation for Social Development, the Election Integrity Monitoring Team and Shams Network for Monitoring Elections. All three are Iraqi institutions with Western backing. They posted observers at 41,652 of the 52,000 polling stations.
A spokeswoman for Iraq's Independent High Electoral Commission said: "This report shows some weak points. These are things that can happen in any electoral process. The commissioners will try to avoid them in future."
Among the most serious problems highlighted are inadequate or fraudulent electoral rolls. Observers reported "the absence of the names of thousands of voters, despite the fact that a large number of names were registered in the previous elections. This includes displaced voters and employees of the security forces".
Supporters of Ayad Allawi, the former Prime Minister, alleged last week that up to 250,000 members of the armed forces had been unable to vote or may have been prevented from doing so.
Other opposition parties have claimed interference by government officials, allegations backed up at least in part by election monitors who have reported "unauthorised persons inside polling stations" and noticed officials "allowing voters to vote on behalf of others in some polling stations, as well as allowing collective voting".
In some provinces voters turned up at polling stations with identity papers for absent or dead family members and managed to cast a ballot on their behalf. Family and tribal leaders have been observed selling entire blocks of votes to parties or candidates in previous Iraqi elections.
Iraqis resident outside the country were in some cases disenfranchised, according to the report. "The failure to open polling stations in many countries where large numbers of Iraqi voters live ... deprived them of their right to participate in the election." The lack of clear procedures on the use of official Iraqi documents, for example, has deprived others of their electoral right." Between two and three million Iraqis are believed to have fled the country.
The Independent High Electoral Commission has been repeatedly criticised by political parties and the Iraqi media for the slowness of the count. A week after polling, no clear result has been published. Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, appears to be leading in Baghdad and Basra, according to tallies released over the weekend, but only two million out of 12 million votes cast have been declared.
Mr Maliki is trailed by Mr Allawi in Baghdad and by the Iraqi National Alliance, a grouping of Shia sectarian parties, in Basra and other southern provinces. The Prime Minister is ahead in six Iraqi provinces, while Mr Allawi has the lead in four, including Anbar, the heartland of Iraq's Sunni community.
Complete results from the Iraqi election are expected on March 18 and the final ones - after any appeals are dealt with - are likely to come in about a month.
General Stephen Lanza, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq, said: "It's important now that all parties accept the will of the citizens of Iraq, as expressed through their individual votes, and work expediently to peacefully transition the government and to seat the new government."
