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Thousands march against Iran meddling in Iraqi elections |
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Wednesday, 28 December 2005 |
 Iran Focus – Thousands of Iraqis turned out to demonstrate in
Baghdad Tuesday morning against Iranian meddling in December 15
parliamentary elections and called for an international committee to be
set up to investigate charges of widespread voter fraud.
The rally, which was organised by Maram (Conference Rejecting Rigged
Elections), drew tens of thousands of Sunnis and secular Shiites alike.
The protestors claimed that the polls had been rigged and that the
Electoral Commission which has thus far said that it is only willing to
look into 35 out of about 1,500 complaints was itself involved in
tampering with the votes.
The Iraqi National List, led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and
several other Iraqi groups have threatened to carry out fresh protests
and strikes unless the complaints were addressed.
Groups close to Allawi, a secular Shiite, have suggested that the United Nations and the Arab League re-examine ballot counting.
Similar protests were held elsewhere in Iraq towns and cities. A large
crowd of mainly Sunnis marched in the town of Tikrit, north of the
capital, on Tuesday, while another demonstration against Iranian
meddling in the Iraq elections was held in the western town of Fallujah
on Sunday. The city of Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, also witnessed on
Sunday a political protest by more than 1,000 demonstrators against
election fraud.
Later on Tuesday, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Iran-backed
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), told a joint
news conference with Masoud Barzani that the election results could not
be invalidated.
The Shiite cleric rejected a new round of internationally supervised elections.
Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the Al-Jazeera website found that more
than 84 percent of people did not believe that the preliminary results
of the elections were authentic.
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