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Wanted: Election volunteers

Jan-25-2005 » Filed Under: TF Olympia

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BY DIONNE SEARCEY, Newsday

MOSUL, Iraq - Iraqi election officials kicked off a media blitz yesterday in this terror-gripped city aimed at hiring nearly 1,000 election workers in the next six days to help set up and monitor Sunday's landmark vote.

The task is daunting. Hundreds of workers quit last month under threats from insurgents, and until very recently, Khalid Kazar, a skinny 28-year-old official from the Independent Elections Commission of Iraq, had been running mostly a one-man operation in this city of 1.8 million. So far, only six others have joined Kazar's ranks.

Yesterday afternoon, Kazar arranged interviews with local media in hopes of persuading 993 other residents of Mosul to facilitate the nation's first democratic elections in decades.

Despite the long odds of rounding up enough workers in such a short time, U.S. military officials said they were certain elections would occur in Mosul, the country's third-largest city.

"Time is ticking," said Army Civil Affairs Maj. Anthony Cruz, the military's liaison with the Iraqi commission in Mosul. "We're short on workers, but we're trying to address that."

With the help of Cruz and other U.S officials, Kazar has filmed get-out-the-vote ads to run on television and is making sure American and Iraqi soldiers have enough elections recruitment fliers to hand out to locals on their patrols through town. The elections commission has asked U.S. military officials to help with logistics and security plans in the insurgent strongholds of Anbar province, where Fallujah is located, and Mosul's Nineveh province.

"It will be a race to the finish," Cruz said.


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