US embassy cable - 05BAGHDAD4224

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 004224 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/14/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, KDEM, IZ, Elections 
SUBJECT: STRAGGLERS BEWARE: ELECTION REGISTRATION DEADLINE 
APPROACHING FAST 
 
REF: BAGHDAD 3975 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Robert S. Ford for reasons 1.4 (B) a 
nd (D). 
 
1. (SBU) SUMMARY. Procrastinators will have less than 
a week to make sure they are on the ballot during 
December 15 elections. The September 30 registration 
deadline for parties and individuals has come and 
gone, and only one more week (deadline: October 21) 
remains for registered parties to name their 
candidates and if so-inspired, form coalitions. 
Sixty-three individuals, 264 parties, and one 
coalition have already registered under the September 
30 deadline, an overall 50 percent increase over last 
January's elections. There are two main concerns. 
First there is no sense as to whether these parties 
will be able to solidify candidate lists in time for 
the deadline and second, there exists no strong 
mechanism to screen candidates.  END SUMMARY. 
 
 
MAJOR WEAKNESS IN REGISTRATION VERIFICATION 
------------------------------------------- 
2. (U) Party entities/coalitions must fulfill several 
requirements to participate in the December elections. 
Chief among these requirements is a list of 500 
signatures supporting the entity, a monetary deposit, 
non-refundable if 50 percent or more of the votes 
needed to win a seat is not obtained, and a signed 
statement affirming that the party/entity has no 
affiliation with armed forces, or otherwise has no 
unsavory past dealings, for example with Saddam's 
regime.  This signed statement also includes an 
affirmation of other routine requirements, for example 
that the candidate is over a certain age, a high 
school degree holder, and so on. 
 
3. (C) On October 12, Mauricio Claudio, IFES 
representative and operational specialist in charge of 
party registration, told PolOff that the ability to 
verify these signed statements is almost non-existent. 
Claudio cited poor record keeping, limited resources, 
and a short time frame for investigations as the main 
reasons.  However, he especially cited the lack of 
some sort of adequate database to cross check 
candidate names.  When asked how the national and 
international community could be certain that 
individuals with a criminal past were not elected, 
Claudio did not have a specific answer. He did mention 
that the incentive for candidates in the same or other 
parties would be to "rat-out" a prospective candidate 
as a way to disqualify him or her.  PolOff expressed 
her concern, and will continue to follow-up on this 
important theme. 
 
NO BUDGING ON DEADLINE? 
----------------------- 
 
4. (C) On October 9, UN/EAD Carina Pirelli had 
reinforced the October 21 candidate list/coalition 
deadline.  Pirelli said that this deadline was a hard 
deadline because the IECI needed 7 weeks to go through 
the motions of printing, producing, and distributing 
ballots and polling materials. During PolOff's October 
12 meeting, Claudio emphasized this same point. 
However, when PolOff pushed for more information on 
how the ballots would appear when printed, Claudio 
admitted that only the party and party coalitions 
information would be printed on the ballot.  The 
actual candidate lists would, he said, would be 
printed 7 days before and posted at the polling 
centers. Therefore, there will be up to 6 weeks to vet 
candidates. Presumably, there will be some candidates 
disqualified after October 21 for various reasons, and 
these names must be replaced by other names. 
 
 
INCENTIVE TO REGISTER IN ALL PROVINCES? 
--------------------------------------- 
 
5. (C) Forty-five compensatory seats out of 270 will 
be allocated to "on-the-margin" political entities 
(ref).  Although regulations for how this compensatory 
system will work are not yet finalized, one scenario 
would be to allocate seats to political entities that 
do not obtain a majority in a particular governorate, 
but obtain a significant number of votes country-wide. 
 
6. (C) Claudio said that the October 21 deadline was 
also the deadline for parties and coalitions to decide 
in which provinces they would offer up candidates, and 
which candidates would run where. He said that some 
parties or coalitions could decide to run in all 
provinces or just a few.  PolOff asked him whether the 
parties' and coalitions' incentive would be to place 
candidates in all governorates given the compensatory 
seats provision.  He affirmed that this could indeed 
be the incentive.  He cautioned that regulations 
detailing the compensatory seat system had not yet 
been put in place. 
 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
7. (C) Post will follow up with the IECI on the 
following issues: (a) improving the ability at an 
operational level to vet candidates; (b) flexibility 
on the October 21 deadline for candidate lists that 
would not affect readiness to hold elections December 
15 (c) the need to finalize regulations for 
compensatory seats. 
Khalilzad