Sami's Election Thoughts
... Sami Rasouli's Story
December, 2005

Sami Rasouli has returned from the Twin Cities to his homeland to be with his people during the US occupation of Iraq. Sami was the owner of Sinbad's Restaurant, a pioneer in introducing Middle Eastern culture to the area. Sami has left his business and hopes to be of some, yet unknown, help to his countryman. He has agreed to send back periodic reports of his journey. For more about Sami, visit our Feature on his mission.


Salaam,

Elections went OK at this time in Iraq with relatively wide participation of Arab-Sunni population of the western area of Iraq and north of Baghdad. They have finally realized their important involvement in the political process is a must to work out - a formula, maybe a coalition - with majority of Shi'a leaders to build a pressure on the American occupation forces to set a withdrawal time table according to their agreement in Cairo last month.

Iraqi-Sunnis leaders are satisfied in general with how the elections process went, but they asked to redo the elections in some area ( north and west of the Capital ) where voters couldn't get to the polling centers and also because of a severe lack of voting boxes, applications and other necessary voting requirements and other materials.

Relatively, these elections were secured mainly in the south without major violent incidents, but the International green zone was hit by a motor shell causing injuries. There were registered 50 violent actions across the country comparing with 300 at the first time back in Jan. 30, 2005.

An estimated 10 out of 15  million registered voters casted their votes at this time. The United Alliance Slate (Shi'a) came first, the Iraqi Slate ( Allawi, secular-Shi'a a US favorite candidate)  came second and Al Wifaq ( Consensus, Arab-Sunnis) came third. The good news is that Chalabi is out. The Curds in the north of course are # 1. They're securing at least 35 instead of the 75 seats they got last time due to the absence of Arab-Sunnis out of a total of 275 seats in the Parliament. These are preliminary, but not official elections outcomes. There were many violations documented and complaints submitted to the Iraqi Independent Elections Commission, especially in the oil-rich city of Kurkouk.The head of the Commission, Mr. Fareed Ayar has stated that final elections results will be announced in 2 weeks!

Personally, I expect an Arab-Sunni leader will be the president of Iraq for the next 4 years - maybe Mr. Adnan Ad Dulaimi, Mr.Tarik Al Hashimi or Shaikh Harith Ad Dhari with a Kurdish VP - and a Shi'a Prime Minister, probably the current PM, Mr. Ibrahim Al Jaffari will stay in office with a Kurdish Vice-PM.

Still there is no news about our captive Christian Peacemaker Team friends until this moment, but we continue holding our prayers for their safe return.

It's nice and cool here in Karbala, it's about F 65. I understand that you're having a   snowy and cold weather, but going to have a white Christmas this year. this is nice!

Salaam is not just a greeting, it's the Goal.

Wishing you and family a safe and warm holiday,

Sami Rasouli
Muslim Peacemaker Team
Najaf & Karbala  
               Iraq
+ 964 790 282 7579
+ 964 780 155 6588

The SJA website will continue to include first-hand reports of the war in Iraq from Sami Rasouli and other peacemakers with whom we have built relationships. Sami has also made us aware of other sources of information from Iraq, including the following story called Behind The Steel Curtain: The Real Face of Occupation at The Brussels Tribunal