On the final day of campaigning for Iraq’s provincial elections, a Communist Party motorcade waving banners and with loudspeakers blaring drove through Baghdad’s impoverished Sadr City district, known to many Iraqis as Thawra (revolution) City, Jan 29.
More than 30 cars took part, distributing leaflets and calling on people to vote for the democratic coalition list, Madaniyoun, in which the party is participating. The flyers included an appeal issued by Iraqi Communist Party leader Hamid Majeed Mousa, calling on all Iraqis to participate actively in the Jan. 31 provincial elections. National and local Communist Party leaders joined the motorcade.
The party held motorcades in neighborhoods throughout Baghdad, including Karradah, Palestine Street, Waziriyyah, Adhhamiyyah, Husseiniyya, Yousifiyya, Jihad, Mansour, Hurriya, Kadhimiyyah, Alawi and others.
The day before, the ICP held an outdoor ceremony in Baghdad winding up its campaign The event attended by hundreds of members and supporters, took place in the courtyard of the party headquarters at Andulus Square in central Baghdad. Along with political speeches, it featured readings by well-known Iraqi poets.
Mousa, secretary of the party’s Central Committee, told the crowd that the provincial elections would be ‘a memorable day in the history of Iraq and in your lives.’
Comparing it to problem-filled previous elections, he said, ‘We hope that this experience will be different. It is an opportunity for the masses of our people to freely express their hopes and ambitions and to elect those deemed eligible for expressing these hopes and aspirations and defending them.’
‘We have presented to the people an alliance of Communists, democrats, honest nationalists and genuine independent figures,” Mousa said. “This alliance, which has taken the name of Madaniyoun in Baghdad and other names depending on the circumstances of each province, is a bouquet of roses, that promote hope, love and tolerance in the hearts of the people, and promise them, in word and deed, a better life.’
Mousa stressed that, regardless of the ongoing controversy over the division of powers between Iraq’s central government and the provinces and regions, the provincial governments will play a bigger role in the life of each province, and in decision-making at all levels.
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