Army and police 'meddled' in Iraq election

Independent election monitors in Iraq have raised significant concerns over the conduct and fairness of last week's national poll. A high-level Iraqi report obtained by The Times details violations across the country and includes evidence of the army and police interfering directly with voting on March 7. Based on testimony compiled by three non-governmental agencies, the report says that in some Iraqi provinces "security forces were urging people to vote for a specific list". Election monitors also observed "the presence of a number of security forces even within the voting hall, which sometimes hindered the movement of voters and confused them about ensuring privacy in the voting". The report, which was circulated among Western officials in Baghdad this weekend, will add to the impression that Iraq's second full parliamentary poll was not free and fair. A number of parties have made allegations of major fraud, although foreign diplomats say that at least some allegations are partisan attempts to discredit the poll by those likely to lose. The independent report detailing widespread irregularities was compiled by the Tammuz Organization for Social Development, the Election Integrity Monitoring Team and Shams Network for Monitoring Elections. All three are Iraqi institutions with Western backing. They posted observers at 41,652 of the 52,000 polling stations.