Iraq poll campaign begins; attacks kill 6 troops

by **Ponee** Wed Apr 02, 2014 9:09 am

Iraq poll campaign begins; attacks kill 6 troops

04/02/2014

Iraq poll campaign begins; attacks kill 6 troops 9924692

BAGHDAD: Campaigning for Iraq’s April 30 general election opened on Tuesday, with Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki bidding for a third term as his government grapples with the country’s worst bloodshed in years.Six members of the security forces were killed on Tuesday, as new figures showed unrest was still near its highest level since 2008.
Separate sets of figures released on Tuesday by the UN mission to Iraq and the government differed markedly as to the scale of the bloodshed, but both pegged the violence at near its highest level in more than five years.

The bloodletting continued on Tuesday, with attacks in Tikrit and Mosul, north of Baghdad, killing six members of the security forces.

“There are new faces, but these are the same old blocs,” said Mazin Rumayadh, a 26-year-old employee of a Baghdad-based food wholesaler, voicing disdain for the apparent lack of progress since the last general election in March 2010.

“There is no need for them to fill the streets with posters — they are only making the streets dirty and causing traffic jams. “The elections will bring no change.”

Political parties on Tuesday began plastering posters across Baghdad and the rest of the country, with more than 9,000 candidates contesting for 328 parliamentary seats.

No single party is expected to win an absolute majority and previous elections have seen lengthy periods of government formation. “We started putting up our posters in crowded areas of Baghdad, and in places we know many people live and pass through,” said Munaf Al Haidari, running in the election for a breakaway offshoot of the premier’s party.

“We have divided Baghdad into different areas, and we are targeting the areas where we have the most supporters,” Haidari said. Maliki’s State of Law Alliance is widely seen as the frontrunner to secure the largest single number of seats in the polls, Iraq’s first since March 2010.

But the bloc will encounter stiff competition in its traditional Shiite-dominated heartland of south Iraq from the Citizens List, a formerly powerful group seen as close to Iran, and Ahrar party that was until recently linked to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Al Sadr.

In the Sunni-majority west and north, a variety of Sunni blocs are expected to compete for votes including those led by the parliament speaker and a deputy prime minister respectively.

And in the autonomous northern Kurdish region, a historic duopoly could be further dented by a relatively new political party that has made inroads in recent polls.

Elections in Iraq are rarely fought over political issues, with parties instead appealing to voters along sectarian, ethnic or tribal lines. http://goo.gl/rvx6wy

by **Ponee** Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:30 am

Article Quote wrote:Elections in Iraq are rarely fought over political issues, with parties instead appealing to voters along sectarian, ethnic or tribal lines.

So, politically, nothing is really gained by elections in Iraq.

This is why they are going around bombing and killings the different tribes. If they can kill all the ones who oppose them due to tribal hate, then they can gain the most votes.

Iraq poll campaign begins; attacks kill 6 troops

Iraq poll campaign begins; attacks kill 6 troops

Re: Iraq poll campaign begins; attacks kill 6 troops