As prisoner, Saddam won’t get to vote

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Saddam Hussein will not be voting today.

Although a citizen of Iraq, the former president will not be allowed to vote in the country’s first open election, said officials from the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq, the body that has set the rules.

Officials gave differing if not very elucidating reasons as to why Saddam and Iraq’s other prisoners have been denied an opportunity to participate.

“We couldn’t register prisoners because the conditions are not normal and because of the security procedures to visit prisons,” said Adel Alami, executive director of the commission and a non-voting member. He declined to explain what conditions and procedures make voting impossible for prisoners and added that, hopefully, they will be able to vote in the next election.

Voter lists have largely been drawn from food ration cards issued during the years of United Nations sanctions on Iraq. Voters who were not on the lists or whose personal details changed after the cards were issued had a chance to register in the run-up to the election.

It is unclear whether Saddam ever had a ration card – perhaps an unlikely scenario for a man who spent millions, perhaps billions, of dollars building palaces during the years of U.N. sanctions.

“We focused our concentration on 14 million Iraqi voters,” Mohammed said. “We didn’t focus on Saddam Hussein individually because he is a prisoner.”

Saddam has been in prison since December 2003 and is charged with crimes against humanity, but he has not been tried or convicted. He learned about the planned election for the first time last month when he received his first visit from an Iraqi member of his legal team, which comprises lawyers from Iraq and other countries, said Ziad al-Khasawneh, head of the team. The indications are that the former president would be unlikely to vote even if he had been registered and given the opportunity.

“President Saddam recommended to the Iraqi people to be careful of this election, which will lead to dividing the Iraqi people and their land,” al-Khasawneh told reporters in Amman, Jordan, in December.