- KurdishMedia.com
- 17/03/2010
London (KurdishMedia.com) 15 March 2010: According to the representatives of the three political parties and groups, Gorran Movement, Islamic League and Kurdistan Islamic Union, the election on 7th March 2010 did not escape the fraud and vote rigging that is sadly becoming characteristic of these occasions.
The local Kurdish newspaper Awena interviewed the leaders of these groups and parties and they confirmed the facts and the case of fraud in the election.
Zana Rostai, the representative of the Islamic League, revealed to Awena that the two ruling parties KDP and PUK could not let the election go without fraud and intervention. He admitted that the group had submitted 20 complaints to the Iraqi High Commission of Elections. They confirmed that the type of fraud included the following: in the area of Erbil people voted with no proper ID or people were brought to voting stations who were under-age for voting. According to them, the Islamic League managed to get 80,000 votes in Hawler and 70,000 votes in Sulaymaniah, which has not produced a seat yet.
The representative and candidate for Gorran in Erbil, Shorsh Haji, stated in his interview with the newspaper of the widespread fraud taking place in Erbil and Koye by the two ruling parties, especially the PUK in Koye. He went on to explain the methods carried out by the PUK such as the fact that 6,200 false forms of identification were made for people in Koye to vote in favour of the PUK candidate. These I.D’s were assigned to the names and addresses of people who had either died or been away from Kurdistan since 1993, with the pictures of these people who carried them to the voting stations. Another method of fraud and vote rigging was the presence of security forces in those polling stations which presented an image of a strong muscular force to intimidate people and force them to vote for the PUK.
Of course in the election of the 25th July 2009 the Gorran Movement won in the town of Koye.
Alson Salahadin Babakr, the leading member of the KIU politburo, registered similar claims and accusations against the two ruling parties. Although Babakr stated that this election had been much better, he went on to state that it still had not refrained from the fraud subjected to that of the 25th July 2009. Salahadin Babakr expected 6-7 seats for the KIU from the 100,000 votes they had received.
