Living at Iraq IHEC

Living at Iraq IHEC

It's difficult to convey in words quite how remarkable a place the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC ) is at the moment.

Its guiding principles – openness, transparency, accessibility – prevail, even under the pressure of this critical moment in Iraqi politics.

These moments, you will understand, have too often been marked by violence here. But at IHEC, they are marked by industriousness.

The place is like a beehive. Row upon row of vote counters, checking sheets, entering data onto computers, conferring over numbers, unpacking sealed envelopes.. Mostly young Iraqis, mostly men but with a sprinkling of women, engrossed in the work, humming away.

They are, however, distractable by a TV crew – who isn’t? – and, over their dinner break (so as to minimise our disruption of this vital moment in Iraqi history) they came to talk with us.

Nothing too serious, though one staffer helpfully told me that if any stitch-up was being done of the election results, it would all have to be done at the polling centres because it just wasn’t possible to do it at IHEC.

We were welcome, the IHEC senior staffers told us, to talk with anyone. To go anywhere. To ask any question. To move freely though the building (politely).

No rooms were off-limits. But we were asked to resepct people’s requests not to show faces, which we did.  They gave the same welcome to all politicians who wanted to come and see for themselves.

IHEC officials graciously denied that either media or politicos stressed them out too much.

The senior figures in IHEC, Chairman Faraj al Hayderi and spokesman Qasem Al Aboudi, were – and remained, despite lack of sleep and increasing outside criticism – warm, good humoured and accessible.

Qasem al Aboudi's batteries would flatten from time to time – the media demands on him are relentless – but after a brief period of seclusion in his modest office, he'd bounce back, and resume his emotionally-charged “mission to explain”. Chairman al Hayderi, too,  is not losing his excitement about the political evolution of his country.

Even the vital vote count data, emerging at a slow but steady crawl, comes without spin. On a flat screen hanging on the wall of the ‘media room’ columns of numbers told the story without apology or fanfare.

When we jotted them down, it became clear why IHEC was not in the business of  promising more than it could deliver.

Suleymania – hardly touched. Anbar – a long way to go. Kirkuk – patience required. The unadulterated data-defined picture of the Iraqi elections, rolling out in real time.

Remember that this is a country which still cannot take the political decision to hold a census, for fear of what might happen if the ‘true’ proportions of the country’s constituent ethnicities and religious groups are revealed.

And yet here, in this warehouse of a building in the Green Zone, they are working with the best numbers they have, with the best will in the world.