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      Iraqis’ Frustration Over Broken Promises Keeps Voter Turnout Low

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      Iraqis voted in parliamentary elections that were called a year early in response to anti-government protests. BAGHDAD — Iraqis voted Sunday in parliamentary elections meant to herald sweeping change to a dysfunctional political system that has dragged the country through almost two decades of deprivation.A new electoral system made it easier this time for independent candidates to compete, but the vote was nonetheless expected to merely chip away at the edges of Iraq’s troubles. Traditional political factions, many of them attached to militias, have seemingly insurmountable power, and much of the electorate has become too disdainful of politicians to feel compelled to vote at all.Turnout appeared to be low at many polling sites, where election workers put in place the new voting system, which uses biometric cards and other safeguards intended to limit the serious fraud that has marred past elections.It was Iraq’s fifth parliamentary vote since the United States invaded 18 years ago and was likely to return the same political parties to power as in previous elections. And despite the sweeping anti-government protests that led officials to push the vote up by a year, Iraq’s system of dividing up government ministries among political parties along ethnic and sectarian lines will remain unchanged.With more independent candidates vying for seats, voters on Sunday had more choices — which for many were personal rather than political.“The big parties have not done anything for Iraq, they looted Iraq,” said Mahdi Hassan el-Esa, 82, outside a polling station in the upper-middle-class Mansour neighborhood of Baghdad. He said he voted for an independent candidate because the man came to his door and helped him and his disabled sons register to vote.Voting in Baghdad on Sunday. Election workers put in place a new voting system with safeguards meant to curtail fraud.Hadi Mizban/Associated PressBy late afternoon, the manager of the polling station said only 138 of almost 2,500 registered voters had turned up.Across the country, Iraqis who did vote found schools converted into polling sites where peeling paint, battered desks and broken windows were visible signs of corruption so rampant it has resulted in a nation that provides few services to its people.Despair kept some away from the polls, but others were motivated by the hope that individual candidates could make a difference in their families’ lives.In the poor Sadr City neighborhood on Baghdad’s outskirts, Asia and Afaf Nuri, two sisters, said they voted for Haqouq, a new party that is affiliated with Kitaib Hezbollah, one of the biggest Iranian-backed militias. Asia Nuri said they chose that candidate because he works with her son.While a majority of Sadr City voters were expected to cast ballots for the political movement loyal to the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, voices of dissent existed even there.“I am a son of this area and this city,” said Mohammad, an army officer who said he, his family and his friends were all going to spoil their ballots in protest. He asked that only his first name be used to avoid retaliation for criticizing the Sadr movement.“I do not want to participate in the corruption that is happening to this country,” he said, adding that people still had faith in Mr. Sadr but not in the corrupt politicians running in his name.The mercurial Shiite cleric, who fought U.S. troops in 2004, has become a major political figure in Iraq, even when he disavows politics. This year after a devastating fire in a Covid hospital overseen by a Sadrist provincial health director, Mr. Sadr announced that his movement would not participate in elections. He later changed his mind, saying the next prime minister should be from the Sadr movement.A poster of the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr in Sadr City. The huge, largely Shiite neighborhood on the outskirts of Baghdad is a Sadr stronghold.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesSadr supporters at a rally in Baghdad on Friday night declared victory even before the voting began. “We will win,” they chanted, dancing around Tahrir Square.Mr. Sadr entreated his supporters last week to each take 10 other voters to the polls. On Sunday, in contravention of election rules, cars draped with Sadr flags sat parked across from one of the voting centers in Sadr City while tuk-tuks raced around with Sadr banners streaming.Almost every major political faction has been implicated in corruption, a major factor in Iraq’s poor public services.Electricity in many provinces is provided only for two hours at a time. In the sweltering summers, there is no clean water. And millions of university graduates are without jobs.All of that reached a tipping point two years ago when protests that began in the south of Iraq spread to Baghdad. Thousands of Iraqis went to the streets day after day to demand the fall of the government and its elite and a new political system that would deliver jobs and public services. They also demanded an end to Iranian influence in Iraq, where proxy militias are often more powerful than Iraq’s traditional security forces.Security forces and militia gunmen have killed more than 600 unarmed protesters since demonstrations intensified in 2019. Militias are blamed for dozens of other targeted killings of activists.The protesters achieved one of their goals when the government was forced to step down. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi was appointed as a compromise candidate, pledging early elections. While he has fulfilled that promise with the weekend’s vote, he has not been able to deliver on others, including bringing the killers of protesters and activists to justice and reining in militias operating outside the law.Many people who were involved in the protests were boycotting the elections, and on Sunday in Baghdad at many polling centers, few young voters were to be seen.A demonstration in Baghdad last week commemorating activists killed by security forces and militia gunmen.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesGrand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq’s most revered Shiite cleric, urged Iraqis to vote, saying in his message that although the election had some shortcomings, it remained the best way to avoid “falling into chaos and political obstruction.”Voting in most cities was free of election violence, but the campaign has been marked by intimidation and attacks on candidates.The body of a young activist in the southern province of Diwaniya was found floating in a river on Saturday, two days after he was abducted. The man, Hayder al-Zameli, had posted cartoons on social media critical of the followers of Iraqi parties.Iraqi security forces went early to the polls, voting separately on Friday as fighter jets roared overhead to reinforce the heightened security for the event. The government was also shutting down its land borders and commercial airports from the night before voting to the day after.Even among the security forces, normally the most loyal of supporters for the major parties, there were voices of dissent.“To be honest, we have had enough,” said Army Maj. Hisham Raheem, voting in a neighborhood in central Baghdad. He said he would not vote for the people he chose last time and was backing an independent candidate.At a popular falafel shop filled with security forces who had just voted, one soldier who asked to be called Abu Ali — the name his friends know him by — said he was voting for former Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.Mr. Maliki, while blamed for dragging Iraq back into sectarianism and fostering the rise of ISIS, is also given credit for sending government troops to break the hold of militias on Iraq’s coastal city of Basra and its lucrative ports.“He’s bad, but there are worse,” Abu Ali said, laughing.Falih Hassan, Nermeen al-Mufti and Sura Ali contributed reporting. More

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      In Iraqi Elections, Guns and Money Still Dominate Politics

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      Iraqis vote Sunday in parliamentary elections called a year early, after huge anti-government protests. Most parties are appealing to voters on the basis of religious, ethnic or tribal loyalty.BAGHDAD — Outside the headquarters of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, fighters have posted a giant banner showing the U.S. Capitol building swallowed up by red tents, symbols of a defining event in Shiite history.It’s election time in Iraq, and Asaib Ahl al-Haq — blamed for attacks on American forces and listed by the United States as a terrorist organization — is just one of the paramilitary factions whose political wings are likely to win Parliament seats in Sunday’s voting. The banner’s imagery of the 7th century Battle of Karbala and a contemporaneous quote pledging revenge sends a message to all who pass: militant defense of Shiite Islam.Seventeen years after the United States invaded Iraq and toppled a dictator, the run-up to the country’s fifth general election highlights a political system dominated by guns and money, and still largely divided along sectarian and ethnic lines.The contest is likely to return the same main players to power, including a movement loyal to the Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a coalition connected to militias backed by Iran, and the dominant Kurdish party in the semiautonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Other leading figures include a Sunni businessman under U.S. sanctions for corruption.A poster for the Sadrist Movement on display at the entrance to Sadr City, a mostly Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad. Posters for a candidate from another party hang nearby. Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesIn between are glimmers of hope that a reformed election law and a protest movement that prompted these elections a year early could bring some candidates who are not tied to traditional political parties into Iraq’s dysfunctional Parliament.But persuading disillusioned voters that it is worth casting their ballots will be a challenge in a country where corruption is so rampant that many government ministries are more focused on bribes than providing public services. Militias and their political wings are often seen as serving Iran’s interests more than Iraq’s.Almost no parties have put forth any political platforms. Instead they are appealing to voters on the basis of religious, ethnic or tribal loyalty.“I voted in the first elections and it did not meet our goals and then I voted in the second election and the same faces remained,” said Wissam Ali, walking along a downtown street carrying the bumper of a car he had just bought at a market. “The third time I decided not to vote.”Mr. Ali, from Babil province south of Baghdad, said he taught for the last 14 years in public schools as a temporary lecturer and has been unable to get a government teaching position because he does not belong to a political party.Anti-government protestors at a demonstration in Bagdad’s Tahrir Square this month commemorating activists killed by security forces and militia gunmen.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesStarting in October 2019, protests intensified, sweeping through Baghdad and the southern provinces demanding jobs and basic public services such as electricity and clean water. The mostly young and mostly Shiite protesters demanded change in a political system where government ministries are awarded as prizes to the biggest political blocs.The protesters called for an end to Iranian influence in Iraq through proxy militias that now are officially part of Iraq’s security forces, but only nominally under government control.In response, security forces killed almost 600 unarmed protesters, according to the Iraqi High Commission for Human Rights. Other estimates place the toll at 800. Militia fighters are blamed for many of the deaths and are accused of killing dozens more activists in targeted assassinations.The current prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, came to power last year after the previous government was forced by the protests to step down.While early elections were a key campaign promise, Mr. Kadhimi has been unable to fulfill most of the rest of his pledges — bringing to justice those behind the killings of activists, making a serious dent in corruption and reining in Iranian-backed militias.While the parties already in power are expected to dominate the new Parliament, changes in Iraq’s electoral law will make it easier for small parties and independent candidates to be elected. That could make this vote the most representative in the country’s postwar history. Despite faults in the election process including, in previous years, widespread fraud, Iraq is still far ahead of most Arab countries in holding national and provincial polls.A poster for an independent candidate hung on the fence of a soccer field in Sadr City. Changes in election rules have made it easier for independent candidates to win seats. Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times“It’s not a perfect system but it’s much better than the old one,” said Mohanad Adnan, an Iraqi political analyst.He said he believed the protests — and the bloody suppression of them — had resulted in some established parties losing part of their support. Some candidates are hoping to capitalize on a backlash against traditional political blocs.Fatin Muhi, a history professor at al-Mustansiriya University in Baghdad, said she was encouraged by her students to run for office. Ms. Muhi, who is running with a party affiliated with the anti-government protests, said many people in her middle-class constituency had planned to boycott the elections but changed their minds.“When they found out we were candidates for the protest movement they said ‘we will give you our votes,’” Ms. Muhi said. “We will be an opposition bloc to any decision issued by corrupt political parties.”In addition to anger and apathy, serious fraud in the last parliamentary election has fueled the boycott campaign.To counter voter distrust that led to a record low turnout in the 2018 polls, election workers have been going to people’s doors in some neighborhoods with voter registration cards. Election authorities “wanted to make it as easy as possible for voters who don’t have trust in the system,” said Mr. Adnan, the political analyst. “They are not motivated to register or pick up their cards.”Customers at a cafe in Sadr City with the lights switched off. State electricity provides the cafe with only two hours of power at a time before it must rely on a generator.  Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesThe country’s 21 million registered voters include an estimated one million old enough to vote for the first time. Despite TikTok campaign spots and other tactics aimed at reaching young voters, many of them are boycotting the election.“Our country is for us and not for them,” said Helen Alaa, 19, referring to the political parties and the militias. Ms. Alaa, a first-year college student who said she would not vote, was at a demonstration commemorating slain protesters. “We tried so hard to explain to them but they always try to kill us. Now they try to calm down the situation so they can win in the election and bring back the same faces.”Ahmed Adnan, 19, said, “Every election there is a candidate who comes to a mosque near our house and promises to build schools and pave streets.” The candidate keeps being elected, he said, but none of those things have been done.To help support his family, Mr. Adnan, who is unrelated to Mohanad Adnan, works at a shop selling ice, making about $8 a day. He is trying to finish high school by studying at home and going in only to take exams.His friend, Sajad Fahil, 18, said a candidate came to his door and offered to buy his vote for $300.“Every election there is a candidate who comes to a mosque near our house and promises to build schools and pave streets,” said Ahmed Adnan, center. He wants to finish high school but needs to work to help support his family.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York Times“He refused to say which party he was running for,” said Mr. Fadhil, who studies at a technical institute and is also boycotting the vote.In some areas where there is more money and races are more hotly contested, the going price for buying a vote is up to $1,000, according to several tribal officials.Sheikh Hameed al-Shoka, head of the Anbar Tribal Leaders Council, said groups commissioned by some political blocs were buying up people’s biometric voting cards by the thousands. Under that scheme, voters agree to relinquish their cards and later retrieve them outside polling sites — ensuring that they actually do turn out — where they then vote as directed.In a race between the powerful Sunni speaker of Parliament, Mohammad al-Halbousi, and Iraqi businessman Khamis al-Khanjar, Sheikh Hammeed said he had told his followers to support Mr. Khanjar. The tribal leader said both political figures were suspected of corruption, including Mr. Khanjar whom he acknowledged having “corrupt friends.”“But his friends have worked in the government and offered something for people,” said the tribal leader. “The others did not offer anything. They only provided for themselves.”Fishing on the banks of the Tigris river in Baghdad.Andrea DiCenzo for The New York TimesFalah Hassan and Sura Ali contributed reporting from Baghdad. Nermeen al-Mufti contributed reporting from Kirkuk, Iraq. More