Surprise Message for Karbala Voters

Electoral officials in the southern city of Karbala have discovered a case of election fraud in which voter education materials were tampered with to add a plug for the major Shia-led coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance.

The electoral commission found that some voter education leaflets and posters had been surreptitiously modified before they were printed, and now carried an extra inscription in the top left-hand corner saying, “The marjiya [Shia clerical leadership] asks the people to vote for the United Iraqi Alliance.”

The Alliance – currently seen as a front-runner in the January 30 polls – and draws together the main Shia groupings and some smaller political forces.

While the bloc was established at the request of the country's top Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, he has abstained from publicly backing a particular political force and has instead urged Iraqis simply to come out and use their vote.

Salam al-Masoudi, a media officer with the city electoral commission, said on January 26 that someone had tampered with the computer file containing the template for the election-related publicity material.

“I can’t do anything because I don’t have any evidence against anybody,” said al-Masoudi.

Many people in Karbala, especially in the al-Mualimeen neighbourhood, have already received the doctored materials, and both leaflets and posters are still being distributed.

Al-Masoudi noted that 200 polling stations have been set up in and around Karbala, each intended to handle 2,000 voters. More than 6,000 electoral staff will be in place on election day, January 30.

Karbala is one of the two cities in Iraq, together with Najaf, where major Shia shrines are located.

Ghassan Ali is an IWPR trainee journalist in Iraq.