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All 41 seats for the al-Anbar Governorate council | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 2% | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The election for the governorate council of Iraq's Al Anbar Governorate were held on January 30, 2005, the same date as the Iraqi legislative election.
The largely Sunni province was one of the most violent in Iraq during the Iraqi insurgency, and turnout was extremely low, with the vast bulk of Anbar's residents choosing to boycott the election [1] out of a mixture of distrust for a system perceived to be unfair, and a fear of violence from insurgent groups. [2] Of the total population of some 2.2 million, only 3,775 voted in the governorate council election. Some 13,000 voted in the concurrently held transitional assembly elections.
Helped by the low turnout, the Iraqi Islamic Party was able to win 70.1% of the governorate's council seats on a total of 2,692 votes.
| Party | Arabic name | Leader | Votes | Percent | Seats (probable) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iraqi Islamic Party | al-Hizb al-Islami al-Airaqi | Tariq al-Hashimi | 2,692 | 71.31% | 29 | |
| Independent Iraqi Group | al-Hia al-Airaqia al-Mustaqila | Falah Hassan al-Naqib | 755 | 20% | 8 | |
| Reconciliation and Liberation Bloc | Kutla al-Musalaha wa at-Tahrir | Misha'an al-Juburi | 328 | 8.69% | 4 | |
| Total valid votes: | 3,775 | 100% | 41 | |||
| Invalid votes: | 28 | |||||
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Iraq consists of 18 recognized governorates, also known as "provinces" and 1 partially recognized governorate (Halabja). Per the Iraqi constitution, governorates can form an autonomous region. Four governorates, Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Halabja and Duhok, constitute the autonomous Kurdistan Region. Baghdad and Basra are the oldest governorates. The second most-populous one, Ninawa is in the upland region and has a cooler climate of the north-west.
Al Anbar Governorate, or Anbar Province, is the largest governorate in Iraq by area. Encompassing much of the country's western territory, it shares borders with Syria, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The population is mostly Sunni Muslims. The provincial capital is Ramadi; other important cities include Fallujah, Al-Qa'im and Haditha.
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The Battle of Al-Qa'im was a military offensive conducted by the United States Marine Corps, against insurgent positions in Iraq's northwestern Anbar province, which ran from 8 May 2005 to 19 May 2005. It was focused on eliminating insurgents and foreign fighters in a region known as a smuggling route and a sanctuary for foreign fighters.
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The Anbar campaign consisted of fighting between the United States military, together with Iraqi security forces, and Sunni insurgents in the western Iraqi governorate of Al Anbar. The Iraq War lasted from 2003 to 2011, but the majority of the fighting and counterinsurgency campaign in Anbar took place between April 2004 and September 2007. Although the fighting initially featured heavy urban warfare primarily between insurgents and U.S. Marines, insurgents in later years focused on ambushing the American and Iraqi security forces with improvised explosive devices (IEDs), large scale attacks on combat outposts, and car bombings. Almost 9,000 Iraqis and 1,335 Americans were killed in the campaign, many in the Euphrates River Valley and the Sunni Triangle around the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
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