The Assyrian Democratic Organization
If 60% of the estimated 14 million eligible Iraqi voters showed up to the polls, that would mean that 8.4 million Iraqis voted and 30,545 votes would be needed to elect one person to the Iraqi National Assembly.
With all the Expatriate votes counted and as of Friday 3.3 million Iraqi votes tallied, the main ChaldoAssyrian list #204 did not have enough votes to elect even one person.
The Kurdish list #130, on the other hand, is expected to get as many as 65 seats. Seat numbers 41, 43, 44 and 45 on the Kurdish list are ChaldoAssyrians, and once you assume that in the end #204 will win at least 2 seats, you will end up with 6 ChaldoAssyrians in the Iraqi National Assembly.
Based on this scenario the predicted ChaldoAssyrian winners are from the #204 list: Yonadam Yousif Kanna and Behnam Zaia Polous. From the #130 list: Goriel Mineso Khamis, Salim Potros Elias, Abd al-Ahad Afram and Jacklin Qosin Zomaya.
If the #204 list does better than expected you can add the names Fatin Rokez Mansour Bidawid and Nasreen Dinha David to the group of winners.
While ChaldoAssyrians are on other lists, none have predicted vote tallies that would reach the ChaldoAssyrian candidates.
ChaldoAssyrians are estimated to make up 3% of the 26 million Iraqi population. That?s almost 800,000 ChaldoAssyrians with 500,000 in Baghdad, 150,000 in Mosul, 50,000 in Kirkuk, 30,000 in Basra and the rest scattered in towns and villages mostly to the north.It is also estimated that some 40,000 have fled to other countries since August 2004 when insurgents begin targeting Christian churches in Iraq.
The raw numbers suggest that ChaldoAssyrians would end up with 3% (10) of the National Assembly seats, but ChaldoAssyrian voters have been scarce at polling sites with less than 10% of eligible voters showing up.When the final Iraq vote tally comes out next week, the percentage of ChaldoAssyrians who voted inside Iraq may rise, but the early numbers out of Baghdad as of Friday February 4th are disturbing.
While the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani backed United Iraqi Alliance list #169 had 610,014 votes in Baghdad by Friday, the ChaldoAssyrian #204 list had only 4,367 votes.
Why the low turnout?
Inside Iraq, fear of violence by the insurgents was the main reason for low ChaldoAssyrian turnout, and in northern Iraq voter irregularities was blamed. But while protesters claimed that more than 150,000 ChaldoAssyrian voters were disenfranchised in the north because ballots did not show up at polling stations, the chairman of the election commission Dr. Hindawi dismissed the allegations of voting problems in the north as exaggerated sighting 96 polling centers had opened in the Nineveh Province and in only one town, Hamdaniya, was there a problem.
For the Out-of-Country expatriate vote, the issue was that there were not enough polling places and not enough time to educate voters. Some voters believed by registering to vote they would be put on a list exposing themselves to deportation or retribution, while others believed it was a rigged election anyway and their vote didn?t matter.
Whatever the reason, the political ramifications of the low ChaldoAssyrian turnout will be far reaching. A once loud voice in the diaspora, now whispering for constitutional rights in a world that?s hard of hearing.
