The Assyrian Democratic Organization
Euronews – 30/01/2009 20:52 CET
The walls of Ramadi are festooned with posters and slogans, evidence of a hotly contested election campaign. It is a far cry from 2005 when the ballot was boycotted by the majority Sunni community.
Fearful of political violence and sceptical about the outcome their leaders had urged people not to vote.
Then the Anbar region was in the grip of an al-Qaeda-led insurgency. With US backing Sunni groups drove the foreign fighters out.
One Sunni in the city said: “We did not participate in the previous election because of the domination of terrorists in the city. Thank God, after liberating the city, the residents of Al Anbar are all civilised people and are ready now to participate in the next election. We hope this election will be clean and fair and we hope the candidates will properly represent the people in the provincial council.”
Forty one seats are up for grabs in Anbar, of which 18 are currently held by the Iraqi Islamic Party, the main Sunni bloc in parliamant. Anbar’s tribal leaders now expect to profit from the stability the help bring to the region by capturing the IIP’s seats. They are standing as the “Awakening National Alliance”.
In stark contrast to the confident mood among Anbar’s Sunnis Iraq’s Christian minority are not relishing this election. There are around three quarters of a million Christian’s in Iraq. They have been frequently targeted in sectarian attacks and the population is dwindling as a result. Many approach the vote with apathy.
“I’ll be boycotting the elections. I will not elect anyone because we haven’t seen any changes, nothing’s been done, nothing improved. They didn’t do anything. We say God help us and send us a good man of the good people to have mercy on us and these people,” one Christian man said.
The Christians say they are marginalised because none of the high level government posts have gone to their community. They see their disenfranchisement deepening after the Iraqi parliament passed a law reserving only 6 of the provincial councils’ 440 seats for minorities. At the moment they only have three seats across the country.
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