Sat, Mar 06, 2010 page6

• Iraq elections a boon for singers, poets

  SING IF YOU’RE WINNING Iraqi politicians are enlisting the help of crooners and poets ahead of this weekend’s election in an attempt to attract the attention of cynical voters

  • AFP AND AP
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  Iraq’s politicians, fearing that voters have wearied of speech-making that often proves to be little more than hot air, have hired a slew of singers to woo them.

  They have bought the pens of poets and the voices of performers to sing their praises on the nation’s television and radio networks ahead of tomorrow’s (Sun) vote, the second parliamentary ballot since former president Saddam Hussein was ousted in 2003.

  “You alone resisted the tyrants, you are the protector of the Tigris and the Euphrates who brought back to us life and security,” goes one refrain as pictures flash across the screen of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki visiting schools and shaking hands.

  “National Alliance, we are with you. All the people are following in your footsteps and will vote for you,” sings another choir on Al-Forat television in praise of the Iraqi National Alliance, the main Shiite religious list and a rival to Maliki’s coalition.

  “Hashemi, O Hashemi, you kept the promises you made to the people,” is the song for Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi that can be heard on Al-Babyliya and other Sunni-run television stations.

  “Iraqis, like all Arabs, are sentimental,” said Ahmed Mahdi, a press attache for Al-Forat television. “You can win them over with music, not with speeches.”

  Musical campaigning was a godsend for many Iraqi singers, he added.

  “We pay US$1,000 a song but often the poets and singers work for free because they can get exposure on television or because they believe it is important to get people to vote,” he said.

  Salah Abdel Ghafour, a 57-year-old poet and singer and one of the best paid of the batch, insists his work backs no political party but is simply a call for people to exercise their democratic rights. “In my song, I say that all the candidates’ posters are worth nothing because the best poster is that of Iraq,” he said.

  Ghafour’s Oh people, take care of your Iraq is repeated throughout the day on the state-funded Al-Iraqiya channel.

  Poetry, which also figures in the election campaign, is “more seductive than candidates’ speeches or invectives,” poet Karim al-Lami said.

  In the multi-ethnic and multi-confessional northern city of Kirkuk, the TERT television station, run by the Turkmen minority, has called upon Turkman poet Jomhour Karkouki to provide several works.

  “Kirkuk is and will remain Turkman, Kirkuk is Iraqi,” one of them says.

  Turn over to the Kirkuk TV channel, a Kurdish-run station, and the viewer can hear calls for the disputed city to be annexed to Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region and for voters to plump for the Kurdistani Alliance in Sunday’s vote.

  Meanwhile, Iraqis living abroad have began casting ballots. Hundreds are lining up at stations in Syria, home to the largest Iraqi expatriate community.

  The UN refugee agency estimates that about 2 million Iraqis are living abroad after fleeing since the 2003 US-led invasion.

  In addition to Syria, voting began yesterday in the US, Canada, Australia, Austria, Sweden, Germany, the UK, Denmark, Holland, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The balloting will go on for three days.
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