Talk:January 2005 Iraqi parliamentary election

Talk:Iraqi legislative election, 2005/archive1

Anbar

I have read an allegation that some US idiot claimed many happy American supporting Iraqis voted in Fallujah. Dubious at best, and results so far seem to show that as false as anyone might guess. But, is it true that some US politician claimed that? If so, anyone know who?

I have not heard any such claim. That said there are so many politicians out there that I'm sure at least one said something like that. If someone major said something like that, the media would have probably tore them to shreds. --Bletch 19:21, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Minority or Majority?

I think that alot of people here might be missing out on a mathematical truth about Proportional Representation. While the Al-Sistani's United List may have only captured 47% of votes, they may well get more then 47% of the seats. Here's an example:

Lets say there's an election. Party Blue takes 550 votes. Party Red takes 300. Party Green takes 150. Party Purple takes 50. Party Orange also takes 50. And Party Brown takes 50 votes as well.

If you add this up, you'll see that Party Blue has less then half of the votes cast. The issue becomes one of Threshold. If the Threshold is set at 100, then all votes for parties that captured less then 100 votes need to be thrown out. If you do that, all of a sudden you realize that of those ballots, Party Blue does have a majority. My calculations has the List at 51.06% of the votes that will be used for the calculations, and thereofre capturing 141 of the 275 seats for a majority.

Perhaps I'm wrong? Pellaken 19:00, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You are correct. The 11 parties qualifying for seats polled just on 8 million votes between them, and the Sistani list polled just over 4 million. It will therefore get almost exactly half the seats, and will be able to form a majority coalition with either the Kurds or Allawi's list or both. Adam 20:09, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A bunch of news sources are saying the UAI gets only 132 seats [1][2][3]. Are they incorrectly doing a straight 275 times 48%, or do they know something we do not. - SimonP 00:53, Feb 14, 2005 (UTC)

It depends really on one thing - are these from countries with PR? One of them looks like it may be. Pellaken 01:40, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The IECI has not announced the results in terms of numbers of seats won, at least not on their website. So this is all speculation at present. Adam 03:37, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Structure of the elected government

Hey all, I struck the first sentance from this section which had read"

Iraq's interim constitution provides for an Iraqi Transitional Government to replace the Iraqi Interim Government. Besides the National Assembly, the transitional government will also include the Presidency Council, the Council of Ministers, and the judicial authority."

This is all true, but it is highly confusing. The Iraqi Transitional Govevrnment was replaced by the Iraqi Interim Government months ago and has nothing to do with the elections. The new National Government is neither of the governments mentioned here. I figured I would help eschew some obfuscations. -Kramer

Independence of Iraqi Kurdistan

It is my understanding from reports on National Public Radio in the U.S. that voters in Iraqi Kurdistan voted on a ballot question on Iraqi Kurdistan's independence from the rest of Iraq. It is also my understanding that this was a non-binding referendum. Have there been any results announced of this referendum? If so, could these be posted in the article? Thanks in advance. - Scooter 03:24, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That would be interesting, but this is an article about the Iraqi legislative election. It might belong better at Iraqi Kurdistan, with a reference from this article. Adam 03:37, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Registration and turnout issue

The total vote cited by the IECI is 8.4 million. This is said to represent a 58% turnout. This must mean that there are 14.5 million registered voters. If Iraq's population is 25 million as Wikpedia says, then 58% of the population are registered voters. But since we are also told that half the population of Iraq is under 19, and since we must assume that a majority of Sunni Arabs have not registered as voters, something here does not add up. Iraq only has 12-13 million adults, so it can't have 14.5 million registered voters. Has anyone seen a figure for this? Adam 04:51, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Later: The UN figure for voter registration is 14,270,000. The IECI figure for the votes cast is 8.4 million. This means that the turnout percentage was 59.9%. I am still sceptical that Iraq can have 14.2 million adult registered voters when its population is 25 million. Adam 10:51, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the issue is on that of reporting and terms. In the last US election (for example, unfortunatly, I dont remember the numbers) the US had 60% of registered voters turn out, and 50% of elegible voters turn out. I think there's confusion as to the %age of elegable / registered voters. Pellaken 11:07, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The mystery explained: pretty much the entire population is on the rationing lists dating back to Saddam's time. These were the basis for voter rolls (outside Kurdish areas, I assume) therefore nearly all eligible voters are registered... they do not need to do anything in order to register (except fix occasional mistakes). Assume 99% of the eligible voters are registered, you would expect 0.99 * 25 * 0.5 * (1 + 1/19) = 13.2 million voters. Add a million or so registered voters out-of-country, and you're there. ObsidianOrder 13:10, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

That seems a reasonable explanation. Adam 21:31, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Results table

Where are these figures on the number of seats won by each party coming from? There are no official figures on this. Adam 21:55, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Women

How many women were elected to the National Assembly? Women were given every third slot of the candidate lists and were estimated to get about 30% of the seats. (Alphaboi867 18:49, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC))

Kurdistan election results

Does anybody have information on the outcome of the election to the 111-member Kurdistan regional assembly? I mean, I expect the Democratic and Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan to sweep, but does anybody have figures for it? None of the media I've seen even seem to be acknowledging that the regional elections happened. QuartierLatin1968 20:50, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have some figures and will post them at Iraqi Kurdistan legislative election, 2005 when I get time today. Adam 21:25, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

---

I have now placed voting figures by Governorate at my website. Feel free to adapt these tables for this article. Adam 01:42, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

possible suggestion for iraq?

would this work.

Since the Sistani List won a majority, but likely having a minority would be politically more reasonable, could they make an offer to allow smaller parties to have more representation? Basacally, they would allow all the parties that are over the threshold to have as many seats as they truly deserve, this means the sistani list only gets 133 seats. in return, the following parties would get 1 representive:

Iraq Assembly of National Unity = Assembly of Independent Democrats = Iraqi Islamic Party = Islamic Dawa Movement = Iraqi National Gathering = Iraqi Republican Assembly = Constitutional Monarchy - Al-Sharif Ali bin Al-Hussein = Assembly for Iraqi Democracy = Independent - Ali Muslim Jar Allah Ali Al-Bithani = Hashemite Iraqi Monarchist Assembly = Democratic National Alliance = Democratic Iraqi Current = Democratic Iraq Assembly = Islamic Vanguard Party = National Front of the Unity of Iraq

My question to you guys is - is this possible? or does the election law forbid it? Pellaken 00:54, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I believe election law forbids it, since the names of representatives must come from the certified list for each party or coalition. What is more likely to happen is that the Sistani list will invite other parties or influential people, primarily Sunni, to participate in the constitution-drafting process, but they will retain the final say. Also, a number of laws require a 2/3 majority, the most likely for that is a UIA/Kurds alliance. I think the current setup will work well: the Shia can use their majority to expedite the process (which will be helpful, given the very short schedule), but not to force decisions on substantive issues. ObsidianOrder 04:06, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No country would change the outcome of an election of a national election retrospectively. The Sunni parties chose to boycott the election, so now they are shut out of the political process by their own choice. The only concession I would offer is that if the Sunni parties agreed to participate in free elections, I would agree to hold re-runs of the elections in the four Sunni Governorates, but I doubt the Shia parties would agree to that - and why should they? Adam 06:44, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

>No country would change the outcome of an election of a national election retrospectively.

Um, have there not been two very high profile instances very recently, and even covered here on wikipedia? (But, maybe you were joking, still, to be safe, in case any readers mistakenly take your joke as serious, lets mention these.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_presidential_election%2C_2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_legislative_election%2C_2003

Um, legally annulling a corrupt election and running it again is not the same thing as changing the result of an election because we don't like the result. The Iraq election was not corrupt, it just produced a less-than-desirable result because the Sunni parties boycotted it. Adam 10:36, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I don't get it. You said no country would retroactively change the election outcome. I gave two obvious counterexamples (so obvious that I wasn't sure you were serious). Now, I gather you are amending your assertion to "no country would retroactively change an election unless they called it corrupt" ? And further, you are saying that the Iraqi election was not corrupt, so therefore no country would change it? This is getting to be a much more complicated assertion, so I'll just make one point and leave this entirely alone -- I believe one of the criticisms of the Iraqi election is specifically that it is corrupted by being held under the auspices of a violent, repressive, puppet regime -- I assume you've seen such criticisms, as I hardly invented them; I'm only telling you what I see widely reported, not whether to believe it.

That you don't get it is perfectly evident. Adam 23:35, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)