A presidential referendum was held in Iraq on October 15, 1995. It was the first direct presidential election under the rule of Saddam Hussein, who had seized power through the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) in 1979. Taking the form of a referendum with no other candidates, the election involved giving voters paper ballots that said: "Do you approve of President Saddam Hussein being the President of the Republic?"[1][2] They then used pens to mark "yes" or "no".[2] The next day, Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, Hussein's deputy in the ruling RCC, announced the incumbent had won 99.96% of some 8.4 million valid votes cast. Officially, 3,052 people voted against him (45 of them in Baghdad),[3][4] and turnout was 99.47%.[5] The international community reacted with widespread incredulity to these figures.[6]
^Dieter Nohlen, Florian Grotz & Christof Hartmann (eds.). Elections in Asia and the Pacific: A Data Handbook, Volume 2, p.102. Oxford University Press US (2001), ISBN0-19-924958-X
^ abYoussef M. Ibrahim, "Iraqis Go to Polls; Guess Who Will Win", The New York Times, October 15, 1995
^Yahia, Latif; Wendl, Karl. I Was Saddam's Son, p.281-2. Arcade Publishing (1997), ISBN1-55970-373-3
^"No Surprise in Iraqi Vote", The New York Times, October 17, 1995. Ibrahim declared: "It is an immortal day in the history of Arabism and Islam. It is a blow to the states that have harbored enmity toward Iraq and raised unjustified doubts about the legitimacy of its regime or the right of its people to choose the form of government they like."
^Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce; Root, Hilton L. Governing for Prosperity, p.62. Yale University Press (2000), ISBN0-300-08018-2
^Taylor & Francis Group. The Middle East and North Africa 2004, p.465. Routledge (2003), ISBN1-85743-184-7
