Christians have no voice in new Iraq government

Local Chaldeans hope they can make difference with vote.

PUBLISHED: December 13, 2005

By Chad Selweski
Macomb Daily Staff Writer

Macomb County Chaldeans are concerned that this week’s Iraqi elections, including absentee ballots cast from the United States, could leave their Christian bloc with a minimal voice in Iraq’s new government.

Local Chaldeans, numbering an estimated 12,000 to 18,000 in the county, hope to join forces with other Iraqi Christians across the globe to ensure that they have representation in the 275-seat parliament to be elected this week. Out-of-country voting will take place today, Wednesday and Thursday. The in-country Iraqi election is slated for Thursday to choose the first permanent parliamentary seats.

“There are big hopes, but it’s probably doubtful,” said Martin Manna, 33, director of the Farmington Hills-based Chaldean-American Chamber of Commerce. “The reason for that is the Chaldean population in America has been here since the late 1960s. They’ve been assimilated, and they’re disenchanted. They don’t think they’ll make a difference.”

Voting in Michigan will take place in Farmington Hills and Dearborn. With an estimated 240,000 Iraqi-Americans eligible to cast out-of-country ballots, polls are also open in Pomona, San Francisco and San Diego; Nashville, Tenn.; Chicago; and McLean, Va.

With Iraq dominated by Muslim Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, the existing interim government elected last January includes just one independent Christian representative, plus seven Christian-held seats associated with Muslim slates.

Iraqi expatriates worldwide will be allowed to vote again this week. The turnout experienced across America last January was disappointing, and this week’s vote may not show significant improvement.

Many potential voters simply lack enough information. The ballot offers more than 7,700 candidates, either running as independent candidates or as members of political parties in 19 coalitions. Only two slates are associated with the small minority of Christians in Iraq — the Chaldeans, Assyrians and Syriacs.

“There are so many coalitions that have formed. We wish there was one for all the Chaldeans,” said Hany Choulagh, 58, a Chaldean-American from Shelby Township.

In January, the vote for an interim parliament produced nearly 9,000 votes cast at the only Michigan polling place in Southgate. But that was a fraction of the estimated 80,000 to 120,000 Iraqis eligible in Michigan.

Chaldean churches will again take part this week, offering bus trips to the polls for voters as they did last winter.

Nabil Roumayah, an election official for the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, said the voter registration process is “very simple” compared to the January vote. He hopes the Michigan vote — Dearborn and Farmington Hills combined — will at least double the January totals. Other Iraqi government estimates indicate up to 30,000 votes cast at the two Michigan sites.

Chaldean-Americans, frustrated by constant media portrayals of Iraq as a nation of Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish Muslims, assert that their homeland is 8 percent to 10 percent Christian. But their most optimistic election projections call for 10 to 15 Christian seats in the new parliament.

Nick Najjar, a Chaldean-American from Sterling Heights, will travel to the Farmington Hills voting site today with a half dozen family members, including his 67-year-old mother.

“People this time are more excited. In January, that was a vote for a temporary government. This time, it’s for a parliament with 4-year terms,” said Najjar, 45, a former member of the Sterling Heights Ethnic Committee.

In addition, Chaldeans are motivated by worries that Iraq will become a Muslim theocracy.

“They don’t want the government to be controlled by Muslims,” Najjar added, “to become like Iran with the clerics in control.”

To express support for a secular government, some Chaldean-Americans are bypassing a vote for Christian candidates in favor of a ballot for former prime minister Iyad Allawi, who heads a coalition of moderate Muslims.

Choulagh, former vice chair of the Southfield-based Chaldean Federation of America, said Iraqi-Americans of all stripes simply want a solid democracy and an end to the war waged by insurgents.

“People want a stable, secure, safe Iraq,” he said. “We are looking for a new Iraq where everybody can live peacefully.”