*** THERE IS NO CURRENCY AUCTION REPORT SINCE SATURDAY ( as of 4:30 A.M. EST, 1 May 2014 ) SO I AM REPOSTING THE FOLLOWING PENDING SOME CLARITY ABOUT WHETHER THE " ELECTION HOLIDAY " MEANS THAT THE CBI IS CLOSED ALSO ***
Current week announced as holiday on occasion of Elections
Saturday, 26 April 2014 22:11
Baghdad (AIN) –The Secretariat General of the Council of Ministers announced the next week as a holiday for all institutions of the State.
The Secretariat General of the Cabinet reported in a statement received by All Iraq News Agency ''The Cabinet decided to announce the holiday as of next Sunday dated on 27/4/2014 till the Sunday that comes after it dated on 4/3/2014 preparing to conduct the parliamentary elections in Iraq.''
*** It had been awhile since I checked the CBI website for this year's holiday schedule, which was not posted as late as February, if memory serves. The 2014 holiday schedule is now posted : https://www.cbi.iq/index.php?pid=TheCbi ;
Holidays in (2014)in addition to Friday and Saturday
Jan. 1 New Year's Day
6 Army Day /1921
*15 Prophet's Birthday
Mar. 21 Spring Day
May 1 Labour Day
July 14 14th Revolution /1958
*29 Id Al-Fitr (3Days)
Oct. *4 Id Al-Adha (4Days)
*24 Islamic New Year
Nov *2 Ashoura Day
Dates noted with asterisk (*) are approximate ; and,
Presumably the CBI is closed at least on the 1st, which is today, the day after the election. The government holiday begins tomorrow and through to next Sunday. It will be interesting to observe whether the currency auctions will continue during the government holiday over the next seven ( 7 ) days. ***
The countdown to election day is over. Will Maliki be evicted ? The coming days will be telling. First, we await the tabulation of votes, challenges and appeals must run their course, and then we should have a certification of the results and know which cluster received a plurality of the vote. Let the political maneuvering begin. Fasten your seat belt. It is EVICT MALIKI DAY + ONE (1) or " E - M DAY +1 ".
Al-Sharifi: The Final results of the elections announced between 20 to 30 days
30/04/2014 22:22:00
BAGHDAD / NINA / Head of the election in the Electoral Commission Miqdad Al-Sharifi said on Wednesday that the final results of the elections will be after 20 to 30 days.
Al-Sharifi said at the conclusion of the press conference held by the Commission this evening that "this period will depend on the number of complaints and appeals by political blocs.
He added that the final results will be announced to all political blocs in addition to the various media.
Othman calls IHEC to speed up the announcement of the preliminary results
Othman calls IHEC to speed up the announcement of the preliminary results so as not to raise suspicions
01/05/2014 11:55:00
BAGHDAD / NINA / Mahmoud Othman, a leader figure of the Kurdistan Alliance called the IHEC to speed up announcing the preliminary results of the parliamentary elections for the public in order not to raise suspicions .
He told the National Iraqi News Agency / NINA / : " After the success of the electoral process yesterday, and supporting this success by the UN Security Council, the election commission should to speed up the announcement of the primary results of elections for not to raise suspicions and doubts among Iraqi citizens and stop media campaigns among the political entities on the results.
He stressed : "speeding up the announcement of the preliminary results will strengthen the position of the IHEC and give credibility and transparency to the final results so as not to raise suspicions around them"
The Cost and Hope of the Iraqi Elections
By DAVID ROMANO
I write this week’s column as Iraqis vote in their first national elections since the 2011 withdrawal of U.S. troops. The price of the elections was and continues to be high. More than 5000 American and coalition soldiers lost their lives in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Many more Iraqi soldiers, police and civilians also died since 2003. Today in the town of Baiji, an Iraqi policeman gave his life to save voters from a suicide bomber, tackling the terrorist and shielding others with body as the suicide vest was detonated.
Iraqis deserve a fair election that puts in place leaders who govern to help their country and their people. The vast majority of Iraqis I’ve met do not like the politics of fear and sectarian hatred. Arabs in Kurdistan feel welcomed and many throughout the country are eager to learn Kurdish. Kurdish classes in Baghdad cannot even meet the popular demand there. Sunni Arabs have begun to understand how Kurds and Shiites felt alienated and afraid of the central government in Baghdad, and their relations with Kurdistan and understanding of decentralized federalism have both improved markedly. Iraqi Shiite religious leaders, meanwhile, never accepted past governments’ pressure to issue fatwas against the Kurds, and today one is still hard pressed to find any signs in them of chauvinism or hatred towards the Kurds. Sunnis and Shiites also intermarry in large numbers in Iraq, and Turkmen I spoke with over the years circulate comfortably anywhere in the country. Christians, Yezidis and Kakais have faced serious problems especially in the last decade in Iraq, but even they will readily admit that the intolerance and violence they suffer comes from a minority of Iraqis.
Why then do Iraqi leaders seem to always fail their people? Has there simply been too much money to be made in Iraqi politics, first from American aid and now from oil, for average men and women to remain honest and fair? Does meddling from foreign states and the likes of al Qaeda turn Iraqi politics into a bloody parody of a sovereign state? Are Iraq’s colonial origins, lumping different ethnicities and religions into an artificial British creation, to blame? Has the legacy of Baathism and previous authoritarian governments made it impossible for Iraqis to really absorb the spirit of democracy?
I do not know the answers to these questions, of course. I am fairly certain, however, that Prime Minister Maliki’s answer – a more strongly centralized government in Baghdad wherein he controls all the key levers of power – is not the solution to the country’s problems. Iraqis had some eighty years to try that approach, with often appalling results. At the same time, most Iraqis – with the exception of the Kurds – do not want partition of the country.
Writing in al Monitor on April 30 (“Iraqi election could lead to partition”), Mustafa al-Kadhimi wonders where the middle ground between Baghdad-based authoritarianism and partition might lie:
A realistic solution would be to balance the center, the regions and the provinces. The needed balance among the legislative and executive powers and the laws would prevent a person or a party from monopolizing power. Achieving such a balance requires consensus, and this would be different from agreeing to divide the ministries, the departments and the quotas. Rather, consensus would mean an agreement that preserves the country’s unity, and that agreement can be reached if everyone makes concessions.
What too many people seem to forget is that such a balance, based on concessions and as high a level of consensus, was already arrived at nine years ago: it is called the Iraqi Constitution. The constitutional referendum saw 78.59% of Iraqis accept the new social and political contract, and the mostly Sunni Arab areas who voted ‘no’ at the time have now come to embrace the Constitution. One simply does not get more consensus than that, especially in countries like Iraq. What’s more, the Constitution balanced the powers of the central government, the regions, the governorates and the different branches of the government in Baghdad so that no one actor could monopolize power.
So what happened? Nuri al-Maliki and his ministers happened. As soon as they occupied the seats of power in Baghdad, they busied themselves by flouting the constitution and trying to concentrate as much power as they could into their own hands. Their mostly Shiite constituents quickly forgot what it feels like to be excluded and discriminated against, and cheered when promises to Kurds, Sunni Arabs, liberals, secularists and various regional politicians were broken time and time again.
Today’s election will help determine if this centrifugal process, carried out in the name of Iraqi unity, will continue.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since August 2010. He is the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and author of The Kurdish Nationalist Movement (2006, Cambridge University Press).
Center Trends displays a picture close to the election results after seven hours of voting ends
Thu May 01 2014 05:24 | (Voice of Iraq)
Baghdad 1 May to May 2014 - Iraq Press: Posted center trends for the polls to close preliminary results Jzawz lists that participated in the general elections in Iraq, and promised to continue to hold center update on these results, respectively.
The following is the verbatim text to a report by the Center for the second time until dawn in Baghdad:
Below summary reports monitoring teams of the Center for trends that has done vigorously since the morning of April 30, and up to an hour to prepare this report after seven hours of the end of voting in parliamentary elections in Iraq made great efforts to solicit the views of voters in all parts of Iraq and then was followed by follow-up to the counting and sorting operations inside the centers Polling in Baghdad and the provinces in addition to what they had got from the indicators for your vote and vote outside Iraq.
The results shown below are approximate and preliminary results and brook error increase or decrease by 9-11% and these results will be updated after twenty-four hours:
The existing number of seats expected to be obtained in the new parliament
The rule of law and allied 67 seats
Citizen's State 48 seats
User Sadrists (elites, partnership and Liberal) 32 seats
Kurdistan Democratic Party and its allies have 20 seats
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) 14 seats
Kurdish Change Movement (Gorran) 15 seats
Uniting for Reform 33 seats
National List won 25 seats.
Reform Movement 10 seats
Arab List 10 seats
Civic Democratic Alliance 10 seats
Virtue 7 seats
It showed reports of teams survey and investigation of the Center for trends that other lists which many have benefited from the system of Saint Egosthsal on the number of seats between one seat and five seats, including the Diyala our identity and the Kurdish Islamic building, justice and advocacy organization Iraq and the Turkmen Front, and a coalition of Iraq and is expected to ally with other lists especially with the state law and the state of the citizen and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or that arise alliances new titles.
*** IN my estimation and calculation the foregoing, if it proves accurate, means a poor showing by the SLC and the loss of about 25 % of it's seat total from 2010. A strong showing by the Kurds, especially if " gaps " can be closed in their " 3 " party ranks. Hakim and Sadr must be pleased with their combined productivity. ***
Security Council calls on Iraq to accelerate the formation of a government that represents the will and sovereignty of the people
Thu May 01 2014 09:08 | (Voice of Iraq)
Alsumaria News / Baghdad
Welcomed the members of the UN Security Council on Thursday to conduct the Iraqi parliamentary elections on schedule, and praised the Iraqi people to prove his commitment to a peaceful political process, inclusive and democratic, with invites to accelerate the formation of a government that represents the will and sovereignty of the people and to address the current challenges.
And followed the president of the UN Security Council, Ambassador Joy Aju delegate Nigeria Permanent United Nations, and whose country holds the Council presidency for the month of April, a statement to reporters, Thursday morning by the timing of Baghdad, stating that "Members of the Council called on all Iraqis to cooperate for an inclusive political process aims to promote national unity and emphasizes the sovereignty and independence of Iraq. "
The ambassador said Joey Aju "The members of the Council pointed out in their statement to the aspiration of the Declaration of the Independent Committee of the Electoral ratification of the election results, and expressed their appreciation to the Government of Iraq, including the Iraqi security forces, for their dedication in the preparation and conduct of elections, with the support of the United Nations Mission to help Iraq UNAMI ".
He urged the Security Council statement Iraqis to "accelerate the formation of a government that represents the will and sovereignty of the people and to address the current challenges, and is working to establish a strong and independent Iraq, united and democratic."
The Council stressed "its support for the efforts of the Iraqi government and to assist them in meeting the security needs of the population of Iraq," the statement also stressed that "acts of terrorism will not reflect the path towards peace, democracy and reconstruction in Iraq."
He appealed to the members of the Security Council all political entities to work together in an inclusive political process in a timely manner designed to promote national unity, sovereignty and independence of Iraq. "
He praised U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry, broad participation by Iraqis who voted in the parliamentary elections, stressing that this election a step toward a democratic process to get to the new parliament and the formation of a new government, while noting that "the fingers of Iraqis glaucoma" sent what he described as "defiant message strong for extremists. "
She stressed the Independent Electoral Commission, on Wednesday, that the percentage of the vote in the general election is calculated according to the register of voters, according to polls, noting that it amounted to 60% of the register of voters and 70% of the electronic cards ..
And shut down the Electoral Commission for elections, when the sixth of Wednesday evening, all the polls for parliamentary elections the year in all provinces of the country, in what appeared to operations staff counting the first ballot boxes in all polling stations nationwide,.
The capital, Baghdad and other provinces, on Wednesday morning, the process of universal suffrage for the parliamentary elections, amid tight security and a curfew in some provinces.
It is noteworthy that this is the legislative elections, is the third in the country since 2003 and is the first to be held to elect a parliament after the withdrawal of U.S. military from Iraq by the end of 2011, which is also witnessing the use of electronic voting card for the first time.
Hakim congratulates political leaders in Iraq on elections success
Wednesday, 30 April 2014 22:45
Baghdad (AIN) –The head of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, Ammar al-Hakim, congratulated the leaders of Iraq on the success of the elections.
A statement by Hakim's office received by All Iraq News Agency cited "On phone calls, Hakim congratulated the head of the Sadr Trend, Muqtada al-Sadr, the Premier, Nouri al-Maliki, the head of the Iraqi National Alliance, Ibraheem al-Jaafary, the President of Kurdistan Region, Masoud Barzani on the occasion of the success of the parliamentary elections of 2014."
"He also congratulated the Speaker, Osama al-Nijaifi, and the head of the Wataniya Slate, Ayad Allawi, in addition to other key Kurdish officials on the success of elections," the statement concluded.
Baghdad (AIN) –The Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq, Nikolay Mladenov stressed on Wednesday that the general parliamentary elections in Iraq conform to internal standards.
Mladenov stated in a press conference after the end of the elections "The Iraqi parliamentary elections conform to international standards," stressing that "Those who wanted to undermine the polling day across the threats proved that they were wrong."
Maliki: State of Law coalition is ready to ally with those who put national principle
Maliki: State of Law coalition is ready to ally with those who put national principles as base in their dealings
01/05/2014 13:22:00
BAGHDAD / NINA / Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki thanked the religious authority, the security agencies and the Electoral Commission for elections for their efforts in the parliamentary elections .
Maliki said during a press conference today :I thank the religious authority for dealing with the political scene that directed it properly , for the security services to provide appropriate security measures as well as to the IHEC and international and local observers and all the media coverage of the parliamentary election . "
Maliki added that "the State of Law coalition is ready to ally with those who put the national principles as base in their dealings ."
He continued that the majority of the components of the National Alliance are our allies and we have the ability to form more than half plus one " .
Re: Maliki: State of Law coalition is ready to ally with those who put national princ
The monetary event aside, the drawn out birth of the Iraqi nation as a reflection of our own nations struggles for independence has been very frustrating but enlightening.
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