Elections 2010: Elections Day

Chaos, is the word I can describe the situation when I went to vote today in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

All the arrangements by the Iraqi election commission is just a farce.

We arrived around noon, we were four families with women, children and the elderly.

I was anticipating the strong presence of the Kurdish community, so I was not surprised to see them celebrating and chanting their centered-sun flags on many spots and in the hands of the young and old. I did not see the Iraqi flag, any version of it, held by anyone except for a man and his son.

The first sight of festivities was in the parking lot, seeing five young men standing next to their car, taking photos for each other with their digital camera and dancing on the sound of the song "Shid Heelak Ya Iraq" playing loud from the car stereo. Just outside the parking lot, and in a very big open area there was a group of men and women, hand in hand, doing the traditional dance on Kurdish music coming loud from the speakers of a car. Few meters walking further towards the first entrance gate there was a crowd watching another group of Kurdish people doing the same song, or maybe another song, I don't speak Kurdish so I won't be able to recognize what is what.

At the main Entrance, on its right side there was a space allocated for people to leave their belongings, such as cameras, mobile phones, handbags...etc No one asked me, though, so I just walked onwards and there was the big surprise waiting for me: hundreds of people queuing, not queuing, in fact piling up like sardines. On the rare left side there were two TV camera's put on stand, one of them of the Iraqi official TV channel, AlIraqiya and the other of Kurdish News Network, but no one was behind either of them.

After seeing the situation, the families I am with decided on letting the children behind with one or two of us, and the rest start with their patriotic struggle! However, after just 10 minutes one of the families with us left and did not come back, they stayed in the car till we finished voting. When I came back I found out that they finished three packs of chewing gum with the children with them.

There was no consideration for the old, the children, or the ill. Every now and then someone emerge behind the high fence and call specific name. OK!!! even if he would find the man or woman he is looking for, how would he expect him to pass through???? From time to time the gate is open for one or two and suddenly it is opened and a batch of groups rush inside. Why is this? I don't know

I should not only blame the commission for this chaos, there are some people who just don't have any respect or the least of manners, like that young man in his late twenties who just indulged himself to the front of an old lady just to have a Kurdish chit-chat with his friend. Talking to him was no use, he just tried to say something in Arabic about a phone call. It did not stop to that, while the wave of people kept on pushing, that guy and his friend did not think for a moment about the people behind them, so I stretched my arm around the old woman and started to push the two guys away as I can.

A big man with the a badge hanging from his neck emerged from behind the check-point white tent and starting making signals to someone he knew among the crowd, and shouted "lift the baby-cart and come here" and signaled to move from behind the people. I could not take it anymore, I shouted at the man while pointing to the family left and behind me (a man, his wife, a baby in his small wagon and a small girl of 5 or 6) by saying "what is their guilt of this family then? why discriminate this family from the other. There are a lot of families stuck here". He murmured something, maybe cursed me, I could not hear him, but that generated anger in the young family man and exploded and started screaming as hard as he could:

"Shame on you, shame on all of you. We ran from Saddam's tyranny years ago, and now we are getting humiliated by you. Shame on you, bastards".

After almost two hours shouting and protesting this horrible trap they have been put into, someone behind the fence, half leg in his car and the other half outside was calling us, the voters, by the microphone and saying in Kurdish, Dutch and Arabic that they are going to organize the queue for all of us and he pleaded to assist the police to separate the old and families with children so they go in advance. That created more protests by the people, because there is no way to make such a separation, but at the end they managed and both the young family I mentioned earlier and the old lady got a chance to go in.

Did I mention that the cold weather? it drilled our bodies in spite of the heavy clothes we were wearing? There was a young man in his thirties wearing a white winter coat, hands in his pockets and standing like a chained man from top to toe except the one centimeter steps he was taking when pushed. The man was shivering in a way I have never seen, and because of the packed place, the vibration from that was felt by people surrounding him.

After a couple of time moving forward we stopped for sometimes on the small bridge that separate the main entrance from the path way we came from. It was an angel where I could see the packed pathway with people, and seeing many families give up and treat back for good. Suddenly, a man with short red hair standing in the middle of the crowd turned himself and started talking to the woman standing behind him... he quickly held her, the woman was fainting on his hand, he kept like pushing her to the back trying to find a gap to get her through the crowd. She was holding herself from falling, still had strength, but when they moved out of the crowd to a small corner she lost consciousness. The police came and a female police agent sat down on the floor and took the woman in her arms and started to give her first aid while talking to her and try to comfort her.

After that, like 15 minutes passed I managed to get through the main gate to the check-point white tent where two large metal detectors were erected on each side. At that moment, only the family man of one of the four families was with me. The rest were lost in the crowd. After checking what my pockets and what I have in my pockets - my cigarette lighter was confiscated - I went through the main yard to the main entrance of the voting compound. A young man was standing at the door giving pooling station numbers to every person want to vote. However, he did not give me a number - and I saw many people later did not have numbers and entered the voting station.

The voting compound reminds me of a bazaar, something like the Beverwijk bazaar here in the Netherlands or Souq Al Hamidiya in Damascus. No smoking is allowed but I could feel and see the smoke in the air. While waiting I talked and listen to some people who had one thing in common: they were very angry and extremely frustrated from the way the election high commission organized the event. There was a family of three woman in their thirties who came with other families in a bus all the way from France. They were furious, they even mentioned something about had a fight with the election commission representative at the check-point white tent. One of the two women screamed "There must be someone here who would observe all this crap and write about it on the internet. Someone must tell the truth about all this nonsense farce." A man who was talking to her said that they were not the only people from outside the Netherlands, there are other people came here by bus from Belgium.

The voting process was not that hard or complicated. The three men sitting in the voting station controlled my papers, they were very nice and they varied in the way they tried to show their official official or seriousness, I even exchanged traditional Arab jokes with one of them, a man of 50's with a very warm smile before I left them and gave my vote. I noticed while watching TV that the way we submit the voting application inside Iraq is different than the way we have been asked to do it. Here the voting application must be folded after choosing my candidate, put in a A5 envelop, seal the A5 envelop and put it inside an A3 type envelop, and seal, then I am allowed to put the big envelop in the voting plastic box.

So... a process of merely 5 minutes took me exactly 5 hours to complete

Here, you can find pictures of the event with an article in Dutch

Below is a video from Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS) on the elections:




And the below video is from Radio Netherlands Wordlwide:

Elections 2010: Ready To Go

I called a friend of mine some time ago today to check with him about the elections.

After the mess (and the news) yesterday during the elementary round of the elections I can't say that I can trust the posted anywhere.

The deal is like this: my friend, his wife and children, I and my family will go together to the pooling station. In addition, we are calling all people we know so we can go as one group there and vote. I know some people who are not going to make it on their own, either they don't have transportation quick enough to take them, and there are friends we know that due to their health/disability who defenitely would be looking for some assistance.

Depending on the people coming with us, we will decide if we are going today, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.









Sooooo, its going to be a long day.

In fact, its going to be a long weekend.

Elections 2010: Its Getting Ugly

Today is the first day of the parliamentary elections, but not for the public, it is restricted to allow only voters from military personnel, prisoners and the sick.

To summarize today's political events we can put the major parties in two categorese: the first is the calm, illustrated by media broadcasts of the government and Iraqi National Alliance (INA), for example, while on the othe side there is the panic sort of statements published in different media sources, such as that from Ayad Allawy's AL-IRAQIYYA (IRAQI NATIONAL MOVEMENT) who staged up his fears from false voting.

But throwing leaflets from helicopters warning people from voting for Allawy, as former prime minister announced? this is not a way.

I don't like seeing a media source to watch channels showing their bias to one side rather than the other, yet, Alsharqiya channel is showing publicly its support for Ayad Allawy since yesterday. Speaking about this satelite channel, every Iraqi knows how this TV channel focuses on disclosing everything related to the mess Iran is making within its interference in Iraq. I saw an advert yesterday or the day before yesterday, it focuses on one issue in particular, questioning the purpose from barring any candidate from running in the upcoming elections (like what happened with Al Mutlaq, of course). In addition, it educuate people with good quality graphic CGI effects about the danger that Iran is pausing and the chance Iran is taking to convert Iraq to another persian province, but the interesting thing is when showing the Iraqi flag: the old flag of Iraq, the same flag used by Saddam Hussein since 1990 when he "wrote" the word "Allah is Great" between the three green stars.

Terrorist attacks has its share in today's news: There was also three suicide attacks on three polling stations this morning in Baghdad, where military officials, prisoners and the sick specifically allowed to vote left more than 15 innocent people dead and many more injured.

What's odd in all of this the interviews with people on TV, most of them afraid of further attacks to disrupt the elections, others are almost sure that the elections would not be transparent as it should be, yet, all of them want to vote

and

all of them are hoping for security and stability

Did someone said that the country became safer???

Elections 2010: This Does Not Look Good

This is getting ugly: today and yesterday three major events, in my opinion that would be an essential factor to change the course of the elections next weekend.

Before I do that, I want to say something to two people whom I talked with and insisted that Iraq is safe now, safer than ever...


Give me a break... In the past weeks, Iraq became the nr.1 country in using suppressors for assassination attempts, because it became one of the cheapest things to manufacture.

Anyway, lets get back to what I want to write about:


First: Today's Terrorist Attacks:

The first event I want to talk about is the triple terrorist attacks in the city of Baquba, Diyala province earlier today, which left more than 50 innocent victims dear and double the number injured. Yesterday evening I of the silence before the storm. The attack today drew a lot of news, maybe because of its altitude and the number of vehicles used, but there were other attacks in other cities such as Basra city in the south the day before yesterday, and Mousel end of last week?

I go back to the concept of silence before the storm: as I said, suicidal attacks did not stop all over the country, adding to that a statement by an American military official saying few weeks back that the terrorists will use new means or ways to erupt the upcoming elections. Does this means that what expected to come would be more horrible than what we have seen in today's attack and the ones preceded it? All this to keep Iraq unstable, and making people be afraid from going to the voting polls, but would this work? It did not work 5 years ago, it won't work this time either.

Speaking of keeping Iraq unstable, a friend of mine told me last weekend that in no one's interest to have a stable and prosper Iraq. Her say is based on a documentary that emphasizes on conspiracy theory and how specific people in specific hidden places in the world are running the whole world, its nations, leaders and individuals like poppets

As I said, I am not sure what effect these attacks would make! People have already made up their minds, not only if they are going to participate or not, but Iraqi also made up their mind on which candidate they think would be the right person to select.

I have to praise the role Iraqi media played in preparing and educating the people for that purpose, and I am not going to avoid mentioning the great effort by AlBaghdadia, AlSharqiya. AlArabiya (from Iraq program) and AlSumaria satellite channels, for example, where hours of their coverage were digitally captured by many and uploaded to Youtube on daily basis.

In addition, I have to bow my hat for many Iraqis from inside Iraq and abroad who are posting all kind of messages on Facebook and twitter (and via emails) encouraging people to go and vote.

Iraqis are looking for change.

Iraqis do not want to stay behind

Iraqis want to see their country recovered from its wounds







Second: Prime Minister Interview with BBC

The second is news is the interview that BBC Arabic conducted with Prime Minister al Malaki yesterday. By the way, from the excerpts of that interview, al Maliki did not look comfortable, he looked nervous, even became agitated from some of the questions put forward to him. The Iraqi Prime Minister rejected with firm tone in his voice any coalition with Ayad Allawy if the chance would appear after the upcoming elections. He also accused other political parties of receiving financial support from abroad, without mentioning any in name, but any smart boy can figure out the direction he is taking the viewer to. Speaking on foreign relations, I did not see anything new related to his government stand towards Saudi and Syria, among other countries. At the same time he strongly defended his government's relations with neighboring country, Iran,laughing out U.S. accusations against Iran for its interference in Iraq's internal affairs. Prime Minister emphasized that all these accusations are part of the tension between the U.S. and Iran, he does not share these views, but "any U.S. official is entitled to his own opinion or point of view."

The conclusion, al Maliki's State of Law coalition message to neighboring countries nothing but: screw up, all of you. Other countries must make the move, not Iraq.

The exception to the rule is of course Iran.


OK, let me rephrase what I have just said: al Maliki government will not have any normal relations with any Arab country.

To be fully just regarding this issue, I am not going to put all the blame on al Maliki and his government for the lack of popularity in the Arab world. It is also Arab countries and governments share the blame. Watching and observing the news nowadays makes things clear how much Arab governments and leaderships would be more enthusiast seeing Iraq's top officials other than the current one.









Third: Mohamad Al Shahwany's: Secrets from the Wizard's Hat

The third and final thing is former secret intelligence chief, Mohamad Al Shahwany, and his interview that will be aired this evening on the anti-everything-related-to-Iran satellite channel, Al Sharqiya.

The man left Iraq last year to unknown destination (some say he is now in London, and others say he is in Lebanon). He left Iraq after his disagreement with the current government on the way security and intelligence have been tackled, especially after the attacks that rocked baghdad a couple of months ago. Some say that this man will disclose all "forbidden secrets" related to the hidden-agenda Iran has for Iraq, and that he had evidence of Iran's involvement in the latest attacks on governmental building last year. The trailer I have seen on TV yesterday predicts a lot of secrets to be disclosed, indeed, and will have big implications on the results of the elections.

But...


What a timing!! why did Mr. Al Shahwany decided to talk now? or is it pre-recorded some time ago but Al Sharqiya decided deliberately to air it tonight, 4 days before the general elections?

Elections 2010: Mithal al-Alusi

Every single Iraqi knows Mithal al-Alusi, but for many non-Iraqis he is the only politician from Iraq who visited Israel, a move that drew a lot of media attention and public negative responses, for that he has been accused by many Arabs of treason, because his move "is an attempt to rip Iraq off from its Arab nationalism principle, and from its ultimate goal: The liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation." All this because he attended an anti-terrorism conference in Israel in 2005.

Without going into the right or wrong of his doing related to that visit, the man made his visit public, but it was his fault for being honest. It is no secret nowadays the number of Iraqi and Arab politicians already visited Israel secretly in the past years, in peace and war times, and many made trade and economic deals behind the curtains with Israeli officials, while in public showed resentment, or at least rejection to the idea of having normal relations with Israel. So, what is the big deal?

Before I continue, I tried not to start this post on al-Alusi by writing about his visit to Israel. I did not want to sound like another media trumpet when talking about this politician, but I fell in the trap! It was not intentional.

Anyway, there no single person can ignore or even try to deny the fact that Mithal al-Alusi is one of the most outspoken figures among Iraq's politicians. To take the matter to extreme negativity, some describe him as being rude or ruthless - on a side note, some call it a good attitude depending on the situation. His outbursts at journalists and his reaction to questions during TV interviews on a number of occasions is resulted in mixed reactions, not to forget the reaction to his strong presence during meetings in the parliament.

The look at this man's face gives one indication: frustration mixed with anger, a lot of anger, but with sadness, in fact a lot of grief. I don't blame him, as one of the turning points of Mr. al-Alusi's life took place in 2005 when unknown armed men ambushed his convoy in western Baghdad in an assassination attempt, which resulted in killing two of al-Alusy's sons, Ayman, 29, and Jamal, 24, along with a bodyguard. Two years later, Culture Minister then, Asaad al-Hashimi, has been identified as the kingpin behind the killing and was convicted in absentee - Asaad al-Hashimi is now under arrest by an Arab government and should be returned to Iraq in the near future, unless...

I might disagree, and say that al-Alusi's facial expression of grief and anger are merely an expression of frustration towards the situation in Iraq, a bizarre situation where only "open-minded" Iraqis would share and agree to mourn, and to some extent explode from agony.

When I say "open-minded", I am referring to those people who did not align themselves with some who took the news of the killing of al-Alusi's sons as an opportunity to take moral revenge or gloating, by saying "he deserve it, that traitor, because of his visit to Israel." This is non-sense, and inhuman, well, it is common that human value in Arab countries is considered the least to think about - Bush used Arab countries for the torturing and bring up confessions out of his Crusade war prisoners, remember? George W. Bush realize such fact and used it effectively.

Maybe for the above reasons Prime Minister al Malaki asked Mithal al-Alusi (twice?!) to take the position of head of Intelligence and Security system of Iraq. He declined the offer.

Al-Alusi political history is no secret, full of struggle regarding his opposition to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussain. He is affirmative and determine, for example, in December 2002, he was involved in the takeover of the Iraqi embassy in Berlin to protest Saddam's tyranny, and was convicted of hostage taking by a German court and sentenced to three years in jail. His sentence was later reduced to house arrest. After the fall of former regime in Iraq al-Alusi went back to Iraq and resumed his political career with some obstacles here and there due to his outspoken nature, but to all al-Alusi is not just another politician who used to live in exile (Germany), like many we know and heard about, who used to live on social benefits from his host country (and donations from sources with foreign agenda's), while attending meetings and conference to outset the then dictatorship in Iraq.

But... What can Mr. Alusi do for the future of Iraq?

Is he the right person for Iraq?

Iraq needs a strong man to rule, bring people altogether united. Iraq needs ONE figure to clean up the mess, at least for the coming period, at least for the coming 4 to 8 years, especially after the political, social, economic chaos we witnessed after the invasion of US forces and the sectarian violence engulfed the nation and fed by God knows who from east and west.

Wait… I don't want to be misunderstood, Iraq does not need another Saddam, and will never have another Saddam for many years to come, and maybe will never come. Iraq needs a strong political figure with a lot of power, a man who can compensate Iraqis for what they have suffered all the years that gone, but at the same time he can and without hesitation ram his fist do hard down and with might on those who dare to play with the fate of Iraq and the Iraqis.

Unfortunately I did not see that in current prime minister, people praise al-Maliki for being a nice man with nice personality (some call him merciful!), but did not describe him as being powerful, strict, decisive, and I don’t buy these calls by some who align him with promoting law and order, because reality showed that there is none exists in Iraq. 

To the contrary, the qualities of power, determination and baldness all apply to Mithal al-Alusi, yet, many agree that other things goes hand in hand and Mr. al-Alusi  has two weaknesses: The first I already mentioned, his renounced visit to Israel. In my opinion, Isreal is not the United States, neither it is South Africa to just turn the page and starts with another chapter and a new reality. The Arab-Israeli conflict is a complex issue, take a look at what happened after Sadat of Egypt made his move in the late 1970’s, the move was not prepared, the people and citizens are not prepared.

The second point taken against al-Alusi is what some people call it "the political mood of Mithal al-Alusi", or "the quick change of heart regarding Iraq's political scene", as others put it.

To start with, I don't recall someone calls al-Alusi with being Ba'athist, I doubt that someone would dare to do as such, and I laugh when someone dare to call al-Alusi as being Ba'athist, because this show the level of ignorance such a person has, especially that he was one of the founding members of the committee responsible for chasing Saddam's followers after 2003, as I read... but wait, he might get branded with that, is it maybe due to his thick mustache?

Anyway, al-Alusi does not believe in reconciliation, just a one-shot-and-go type of person - maybe this is one of the differences between this man and former prime minister, Ayad Allawy. In addition, Al-Alusi is not a fan of the concept and principle of Arab unity. Further more, he accuses the Arabs of being the portal for the U.S and western allies used to attack Iraq, thus, for the misery Iraq has plagued with. Mithal al-Alusi is a patriotic, meaning Iraq is the first and last priority. He is known for saying "If the interest of Iraq is found deep in hell, I will go there for the sake of this interest". In addition, he shares with his fellow politician Ayad Jamal Al-Din loath and strong hostility towards Iran, because of Iran's interference in Iraq's internal affairs. He shares with Ayad Allawy, though, the idea that Iraq must have a secular government i.e. rejects having religion and politics on the same table, in spite of his strong ties with religious and tribal leaders all over Iraq. Having said the above, it all makes a very complicated formula, in fact, it makes the voter confused by such a figure, taking every point I took independently and deeply into a long and vast argument.

This post is just sharing my thoughts on another distinguished political figure in Iraq, and not to promote another politician. Last time I talked about Ayad Jamal al-Din, tomorrow might be the turn to write about another politician. I would like to share my thoughts and ideas with my friends and fellow bloggers, and to exchange ideas.

On this occasion, having people exchanging their thoughts on the future of Iraq is important, the most important thing for the sake of the people who suffered a lot from wars, dictatorship, death, loss, occupation, being a victim of other’s selfish desire…etc

Above all, we all did see the current government and its conduct in the past 4 years.

I believe it is time for change.

The below video al-Alusi talks about the assassination attempt that killed his both son’s