...Whether we vote or not, you are accustomed to your regular practice of filling the polling boxes and cross[ing] the voting forms with a 'yes' vote of which we are not aware. You will do this until the percentage of 'yes' votes reaches the level talked about during the time of the late dictatorship [a reference to Saddam Hussein's claims that he won the 2002 referendum on his presidency with a 99 percent 'yes' vote]...
Is the person who refuses to vote a traitor?...If you had known even one iota of the meaning of democracy you would not have confused the word treason with the process of elections, because those who have been traitors are not us but your Excellencies...
Don't ask why young people do not vote. Ask what your actions and achievements have been over the past decade; then, you will clearly understand that the silence and anger of the new generation are due neither to a lack of consciousness nor to carelessness. Instead, it is all related to the background of corruption, which your Excellencies have given us, which makes us lose faith in everything.
Our votes [if we vote] will be for you personally and not, as we want, for the big issues of Kurdishness. Our votes will be for all those big,corrupt men who invaded our cities in the name of revolution and are now indulging themselves by eating away at the dead body of our homeland. We will vote for those revolutionaries who, hidden from us, had [Iraqi intelligence] files.
They will be for those grand officials who refuse ever to give up their seats and who want us to endow them with pharaonic powers.
Tell us: Apart from you, is there a Kurd who is happy to become an Iraqi again? You now have high posts in the Iraqi system of power. Why don't you explain to us what you have done for us? What have you achieved other than that no Kurd dares to travel to a city in southern Iraq because of your mistreatment of Iraqi society. What you have managed to achieve the authority of the Ba'ath Party [the party of Saddam Hussein] could not create...in 30 years: an Iraqi Arab sees a Kurd anywhere [and] beheads him!
Are you conscious of your own unconsciousness? Are you aware what tragedy your politics has left behind? In the past, what was killing the Kurds was the Iraqi system; now, you have made all Iraqi society participate in this killing.
However, don't worry! We will vote for you. We will.
For your part, please remember:
Increase the percentage of Ba'athist members in the National Assembly; We will vote for you provided that you appoint more corrupt officials so that they will quickly finish off what is left of the dead body of our country.
We [will] vote for you so that you continue to prevent any student [from being] admitted to the universities unless they have the voucher [tazkiya] of the two big parties.
We [will] vote for you, but please remember to make sure that the height of your palaces reaches seventh heaven, and that the ghetto neighborhoods of the poor people of Irbil and Al-Sulaymaniyah are further destroyed.
We will vote for you but in return we want you to re-Anfal all the women who have survived [Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Kurds was called “Al-Anfal”] so that they will enjoy your justice.
We will vote for you provided that you go to the graveyards of martyrs and ask their forgiveness because you betrayed them.
If we vote, we will do this in full consciousness.
If we abstain, we will not care about your taunts and accusations.
You are a generation used to slandering your own people.
We will vote for you, but please promise us that you will be more corrupt.
Iraqi Legislative Elections 2005
RFE/RL's coverage, background, and analysis of Iraq's December 15, 2005, legislative elections.
