On January 31, Baghdad was quiet after a long and tense night before the first elections held in Iraq since December 2005. While election violence had been relatively low compared to 2005 and security was extremely tight, Iraqis were nervous not only about security on Election Day but also about the results and what clues they would hold for the future direction of Iraq. Would voters support religious parties, regionally based blocs, or more secular parties? Would Sunnis participate in greater numbers than they had in the 2005 elections?
Recognizing the crucial role of the media in informing and engaging voters, IREX’s Support for Independent Media in Iraq (SIMI) program launched a comprehensive elections project in September 2008 to help the Iraqi media provide enhanced coverage of the elections process, candidates, parties, and the system of provincial governance. Working with print, radio, television, and internet, the program supported special programming for the three months leading up to the elections while also facilitating increased press access to the Iraqi Higher Electoral Commission (IHEC), the body which manages the elections process.
IREX supported the Baghdad Animation Group, which used the well-known characters of a very popular Iraqi TV series from the 1970s—Tahta Moos El-Hallaq (Under the Barber's Razor)—to encourage voter participation, independent voting, and educate voters on other election-related issues. (Arabic)
On television, SIMI supported two popular satellite channels in their production of weekly elections programs. Partnering with Al-Summariya and al-Hurriya, IREX and the stations designed a series of exclusive weekly programs exploring election-related issues. The programs were filmed in front of a live studio audience who asked unrestricted and unscreened questions of a three-member panel of guests. Twenty-six episodes of the programs aired from October 2008 through January 2009. In addition, the two stations broadcast live all day to cover the Election Day itself and engaged the audience by having questions and answer sesions.
Since radio can be a particularly cost-effective medium for distributing information to the large and sparsely populated regions of Iraq, which typically have both lower literacy rates and limited access to television and newspaper distribution, IREX partnered with two national and six regional radio stations to produce election-related radio programming, including a program aimed at the internally displaced persons (IDPs). The programs had experts, such as regional IHEC representatives, legal experts, and activists, taking questions from the host and audience.
Working in cooperation with IHEC, SIMI supported the production of 15 weekly issues of a newspaper supplement, “Your Vote is Your Future,” distributed in five top newspapers, at universities and other public institutions, and to the population of IDPs in Kurdistan. In total, 445,000 supplements were distributed.
To complement the broadcast and print programs, IREX worked with the National Iraqi News Agency to support a free elections website to provide news for republication by media outlets and information for distributing general election information and data. NINA published over 2000 elections-related news items on this site, nearly 2/3 of which came from the governates, providing a view of the situation outside of Baghdad that national media often ignore.
Other activities focused on encouraging interaction between the Iraqi Higher Electoral Commission and the media and on providing Public Service Announcements (PSAs) to encourage voting and inform citizens of voting procedures. IREX supported the Baghdad Animation Group, which used the well-known characters of a very popular Iraqi TV series from the 1970s—Tahta Moos El-Hallaq (Under the Barber's Razor) — to encourage voter participation, independent voting, and educate voters on other election-related issues. The success of the program led to a newspaper creating Iraq’s first political cartoon. Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Agence France Press, Middle East Online, the AP, Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera and all reported on the groundbreaking project. IREX also worked in close cooperation with the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq and IFES to develop a press center for IHEC allowing the media access to IHEC commissioners, elections related information, and an easy way to receive press credentials.
On Election Day, a curfew limited the movement of vehicles. Many Iraqis gathered their families to walk to their polling stations where they faced long lines and tight security. Research conducted by IREX indicated the percentage of people optimistic about the possibility for change increased from 35 percent in October to 60 percent at the end of December. More than 51 percent of Iraqis participated in these provincial elections and the party of Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki finished first and Sunni participation was dramatically higher than in 2005. According to most observers, the win strengthened an “Iraqi” identity and weakened the more radical religious parties that had arisen in after Saddam Hussein’s fall. To most Iraqis the elections were a success, but, perhaps more importantly, were also a preview for the parliamentary elections scheduled for December 2009.