Four out of 18 Iraqi provinces insecure for voting: minister
16/1/2005 11:14
Four out of 18 Iraqi provinces would be insecure for broad participation
in the landmark elections due on Jan. 30, Iraqi State Minister for Provincial
Affairs Wael Abdul Latif said on Saturday.
"We are in talks with tribal
chiefs, political parties and local leaders to get the greatest participation
possible in the troublesome governorates," Abdul Latif told a press
conference.
He said efforts were being taken to secure a better turnout in
the four provinces, which are in danger of being derailed from the US-sponsored
political process.
Voters in Anbar, which includes previously rebellion town
of Fallujah, and Nineveh, home to Iraq's third largest city of Mosul, will be
allowed to cast their votes on election day inside the two provinces but no
where else, said the minister.
At Saturday's press conference, Abdul Hussein
Hendawi, the head of Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission, said the turnout
would drop to 12.6 million from 14.2 million if excluding Anbar and
Nineveh.
Abdul Latif said the government led by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi
will provide adequate security for voters despite mounting threats from
insurgents to attack polling centers.
"The security plan covers all
provinces, all neighborhoods and all voting centres," he stressed.
While
Allawi administration insisted on the schedule, many Sunni groups have called
for boycott, mocking the elections "mere another play under US
occupation."
Influenced by the call for boycotting, the biggest Sunni
political movement Iraqi Islamic Party has announced to withdraw its list of
candidates on condition that the voting is postponed for six months.
The
party leader Muhsin Hamid told Xinhua that his main concern was that "there
would be at least one-third of Iraqi population unable to cast their votes"
because of insecurity and lack of election awareness.
Hamid cautioned that
five or six governorates would be absent in the coming elections.
The polls
on Jan. 30 will pick a 275-member national assembly, which in turn generates a
transitional government and writes the permanent
constitution.
Xinhua
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