Block the Vote
News: Baghdad goes into lockdown ahead of Sunday's election.
January 28, 2005
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Curfew comes at seven now. I drove across town a few minutes before the witching hour, past U.S. patrols driving slowly down main streets en route to place more road blocks, humvee-mounted spotlights searching for snipers.
There was virtually no electricity in the city as night fell, giving the scene a particularly eerie quality as drivers sped past us on both sides in a rush to get to their destination, Iraqi police trucks occasionally forcing all traffic to the side of the road as they screamed by, lights on, sirens wailing, rifles and sidearms out the windows. For the first time since I returned to Baghdad, there are no lines at the petrol stations. They are closed.
"It wasn't this crazy during the bombing," says my driver.
According to IWPR, Iraqis are preparing for the historic poll by purchasing more guns.
I went to visit a pair of polling stations yesterday. In Zayouna, a neighborhood in northern Baghdad (where I used to live, in the halcyon days a year and a half ago, when a foreigner could rent a three-bedroom house for $180 a month, which would still be exorbitant compared to what Iraqis would pay), Iraq Abo Mustafa glared coolly as Iraqi army soldiers guarding the secondary school across the street walked up to his gate to inform him of the rules: no going out after seven, stay off the roof or be shot, and no carrying guns, regardless of whether he had a permit.
Mustafa said he wouldn't bother crossing the street to vote. (Yes, the man whose name is Iraq is not voting.) "I will vote when the Americans leave," he said.
"Many of the people in the neighborhood have left," Mustafa said, pointing out empty houses. "They are afraid of mortar attacks. I'll be leaving my windows open on Sunday and hoping they won't break if there's an explosion. Why don't they use buildings other than schools? Buildings that aren't surrounded by houses, like ministries."
"Why don't they use police stations?" I asked Mustafa. "Those already get bombed."
He laughed. I've finally got the Iraqi sense of humor down pat.
In front of one of the polling stations — a kindergarten — in Karrada, an ethnically mixed neighborhood downtown, children took advantage of the blocked street to play soccer.
"There are going to be snipers," said one of the police officers at the entrance to the polling station, pointing to a building a few hundred yards away. "Someone has already shot at us from there.
"They started doing that as soon as they closed the street," says Umm Morad, the mother of one of the boys, who lives across the street from the school. Morad said she was planning to stay in her house during the election. "Where would we go? Nowhere is safe."
While some of the Iraqi troops joined the kids in their soccer game, others sat incongruously in the headmistress's office on flower-printed sofas, the walls decorated with class photos of smiling kids mounted on construction paper. Behind the headmistress's desk sat an Iraqi police officer who assured me that there have been no attacks on the polling station and that the residents are happy to have them there. Unprompted, he extols the virtues of Ayad Allawi, who is the security candidate in the election. Ironically, most of the Iraqis who say they are going to the polls seem to be voting on the same issues that apparently helped elect Bush — security and religion. According to my rough election math, Allawi+Hakim=Bush. (Abdul Aziz al-Hakim heads the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a major Shiite political party.)
That sort of thing freaks out Hiba, the translator I work with; like many other Iraqis, he sees shades of the former dictator in Allawi.
"It will be very bad when they reinstate the security services," she says as we are walking away from the polling station.
Others do as well. Earlier this week, all government employees received a $100 bonus — presumably for the Eid holiday that ended on Monday, though the timing, and reports in the Arabic media that the bonus was directly courtesy of Allawi, made it more than a little suspect.
"All the teachers were very happy, but they were making fun of Allawi," said Luma Sa'ad, a teacher. "We know he is trying to bribe us. We started to joke that we should vote for him whenever he runs in an election so we can get $100. But we're not sure if we'll still be alive after the elections to spend it. We already have stocked up on gas, water and cooking oil. Most of our neighbors have already left the country."
It wasn't enough to convince her to go to the polls.
"They're all smugglers. For whom to vote?" she said. "I'm concerned, though, my husband is going to vote. I'm worried for his safety. He's voting for Hakim's list because he also likes Ibrahim Al-Jaafari and Salama Al-Khafaji, they are Shiites. I've tried many times to convince him not to vote, but there is a fatwa from Sistani."
In the effort to stem the expected violence, U.S. and Iraqi forces have been carrying out stepped-up campaigns against suspected insurgents, arresting hundreds since the beginning of the month. In Sadr City on Wednesday, that included two boys, 10- and 12-years-old, respectively, who were arrested in an apparent roundup of about 30 members of Jeish Al-Medhi, Moqtada al-Sadr's rag-tag militia. (While I don't think any Medhi guys are going to be carrying out polling station attacks, it is quite possible they were stockpiling weapons. But a couple of kids? And for an idea of the kind of intel that can potentially go into these things, I was nearly arrested at the beginning of the month as I was leaving a Faluji refugee camp, on the grounds that I was a suspected mujahed.)
"I personally am optimistic about Sunday — I don't think it will be any different than any other day," said Sabah Khadim, the Ministry of Interior spokesman. "Quite frankly, wherever you go, life is quite normal for an emergency situation."
I always enjoy speaking with Khadim. His colloquialisms and inflection after two decades in exile are more British than Iraqi, but he's still got the sense of humor. I ask him about the accusations that the elections are fixed, he reminds me of one of the theories that was circulating around Baghdad when the interim government first declared martial law.
"Going back a few months, there were people who said we weren't going to hold elections because we wanted to keep power," he said, laughing.
"I assure you, I do not want to stay in power. It's not an easy task."
David Enders is a 24-year-old freelance journalist who has spent more than a year reporting from Iraq since the end of the invasion. His first book, Baghdad Bulletin: The Real Story of the War in Iraq--Reporting from Beyond the Green Zone, will be released by the University of Michigan Press in April.
