Reply #18: Many Iraqis have "no idea that elections are to be held in that country"

[TexasLawyer]

Here's a non-"Hallmark card" perspective on the upcoming Iraq elections. Really interesting...

From Al Ahram (Egypt)

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/726/re5.htm

The battle of posters
In Baghdad, Nermeen Al-Mufti asks Iraqis what they make of the forthcoming polls

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Violence continues to be the order of the day as the countdown to the polls began, observers anticipate that the lethality of the attacks is likely to reach its peak on elections day. Despite the worsening security situation, some Iraqi voters insist that they will turn up on the day.

While Al-Maliki is well aware of the risks which entails the voting process, he, nonetheless, is determined to cast his vote. "It's a question of luck. A small group of them can't target all the voting stations. I'm going because Al-Sayid Al-Sistani said that whoever doesn't vote is going to hell. If the station I'm voting at is attacked then, God willing, I'll die a martyr," Al-Maliki said.

Others, however, decided to be among Iraq's non-voters. "I have heard of Pachachi but I don't know the other names on his list," Adnan Omar, a university student said. Most of them, he continued, "have come from abroad and we don't know anything about them. So why should I give my life for someone I don't know, when I know that things are only going to get worse after the elections," Omar added. But some Iraqis expressed their frustration with the lack of any educational material on the elections.

A poll conducted by Al-Mada newspaper and published on Sunday revealed some shocking results when it polled a sample of 300 Iraqis in Al-Sadr City only to discover that almost 100 per cent of those polled had no idea that elections were to be held in the country. The percentage is the highest among the women.

But Al-Sadr, a poverty-stricken suburb has many likes in other parts of Iraq. "The electoral commission, says one Iraqi teacher, didn't explain why are we having elections now, it just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on posters and television adverts that said things like 'vote for Iraq'. So if ignorance of the political process is going to keep some from voting, security is the main reason why the majority of Iraqis are unlikely to turn up for the vote."

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