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UN Rules Out Iraq Polls Rerun, Thousands Protest
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"The decision on a rerun rests with the Electoral Commission but I'd be very surprised if there was one," Jenness said.
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BAGHDAD,
December 23, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A UN
official ruled out on Friday, December 23, a rerun of Iraq's
legislative polls as thousands of Iraqis took to the streets to demand
the cancellation of the rigged election results.
"I
don't see anything that would necessitate a rerun," Craig
Jenness, a UN adviser to the Iraqi Electoral Commission, told Reuters.
"The
decision on a rerun rests with the Electoral Commission but I'd be
very surprised if there was one," he said.
His
remarks came one day after thirty-five Iraqi groups, including Sunni
Arabs and secular Shiites, rejected the initial results of the general
polls and called for a new ballot.
"We
totally reject the results of these rigged elections and call for the
cancellation of the early results announced by the Electoral
Commission," they said in a joint statement.
The
groups also pressed for an international probe into the rigging of the
voting to elect the first-term 275-member legislature since the ouster
of Saddam Hussein by US-led forces.
They
included the Sunni National Concord Front (NCF) and Iraqi Front for
National Dialogue (IFND), former prime minister Iyad Allawi's Iraqi
National List (INL) and the National Congress of by former minister
and one-time Pentagon protégé Ahmed Chalabi.
Massive
Protests
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Thousands of Iraqis took to the streets Friday, calling for holding a new vote. (Reuters)
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Thousands
of Iraqis took to the streets in and around the capital Baghdad after
the Friday prayers, calling for a new vote, reported Agence France
Presse (AFP).
"Yes
to true representation in the parliament and no to falsified
representation," read many of the banners carried in the
demonstration.
"We
call for the replacement of the electoral commission and new
elections," said another banner, while a third urged Iran to
"stand aside so that Baghdad could be free."
The
protest, called upon by the NCF, took place in the Yarmouk
neighborhood in western Baghdad and the town of Sammara just north of
the capital.
"The
electoral commission sold Iraq to Iran for free, because it is run by
people in the pay of Tehran, even if they pretend to be impartial or
honest," said Sheikh Mahmoud al-Abbas, a NCF candidate.
"Yes,
yes to Islam, no, no, to sham democracy," shouted the
demonstrators gathered in the center of the predominantly Sunni city.
On
Wednesday, twenty-five Iraqi groups threatened to boycott the new
parliament in protest at the fraud polls.
They
demanded intervention from the Arab League, United Nations and
European Union to revise the election results.
The
Electoral Commission has rejected calls for a rerun of the vote,
saying it was investigating more than 1,000 complaints of polling
abuses.
The
announced results indicate that the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance of
Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari may hold on to a slim parliamentary
majority.
The
new parliament's first task will be to appoint a president and two
vice presidents who will then have 15 days to name a prime minister.
The
premier will have 30 days to form a full-term, four-year cabinet with
parliamentary approval.
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