|
Iraqi town holds first election
28/04/2003 19:14 - (SA)
Baghdad - The first democratic elections in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein were held in a city near Baghdad last week, said United States military officials.
In a tentative step towards democracy, Abu Ghraib, a city of more than one million people about 20km west of the capital, elected a city council in a poll which US officials helped organise.
The vote was hailed as "the first, free election in recent Iraqi history," by Lieutenant-Colonel Mark Garrell, commander of the 1-2 Air Defencse Artillery (ADA) regiment.
The 1st Battalion, 3rd ADA took control of the town, once synonymous with one of Saddam Hussein's most notorious prisons, on April 13, according to a statement issued by US central command from Baghdad.
The announcement came as hundreds of would-be Iraqis of all political stripes met in the capital with Washington's interim administrator for Iraq, aiming to prepare a post-Saddam government.
The Abu Ghraib city council met officials from the town's municipal service and leaders from the battalion last Wednesday to discuss restoring vital services and order to the town, the statement said.
Water, security and salaries main concerns
It added that soldiers from the 5th Special Forces group had been working with Abu Ghraib townspeople for more than eight months to help them with the elections, long before the start of the US-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"It helped considerably that Special Forces soldiers had been in the area before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom," said the Special Forces team leader, identified only as Captain Mike, referring to the US name for the military campaign.
The main concerns raised by the council were security and water for the local hospital and salaries for police forces, who had not been paid in more than two months, said Mike.
"We told them if they led, we would support them," he said.
"After 36 years under Ba'ath Party leadership, they're scared, and they don't really know how democracy works. But, for the first time, they have an assembly elected through a democratic process."
Garrell told the council he would work fast to address the issues he could, and take the problems he could not resolve up with his chain of command, said the statement.
Mike said the army would need the support of the local government because it could serve as a "template" for other cities.
"If things go well, it will be a model for how governments can be built in other cities here," he said.
|
News
