Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
With non-Sunni Muslims poised to take power for the first time, a new Iraq is being born. Will it survive its infancy?
Feb 1, 2005 | The elections held on Jan. 30 in Iraq were deeply flawed as a democratic process, but they represent a political earthquake in Iraq and in the Middle East. The old Shiite seminary city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, appears poised to emerge as Iraq's second capital. For the first time in the Arab Middle East, a Shiite majority has come to power. A Shiite-dominated Parliament in Iraq challenges the implicit Sunni biases of Arab nationalism as it was formulated in Cairo and Algiers. And it will force Iraqis to deal straightforwardly with the multicultural character of their national society, something the pan-Arab Baath Party either papered over or actively attempted to erase. The road ahead is extremely dangerous: Overreaching or miscalculation by any of the involved parties could lead to a crisis, even to civil war. And America's role in the new Iraq is uncertain.
Despite the loftiness of the political rhetoric and the courage and idealism of ordinary voters, the process was so marred by irregularities as sometimes to border on the absurd. The party lists were announced, but the actual candidates running on these lists had to remain anonymous because of security concerns. Known candidates received death threats and some assassination attempts were reported. So the voters selected lists by vague criteria such as their top leaders, who were known to the public, or general political orientation.
Late in the election season, several politicians discovered that they had been listed without their permission and angrily demanded that the lists withdraw their names. So not only were the candidates mostly anonymous, but some persons were running without knowing it. These irregularities made the process less like an election (where there is lively campaigning by known candidates and issues can be debated in public) and more like a referendum among shadowy party lists.
Nevertheless, enough was known about the major party and coalition lists to allow most Iraqis to make a decision. The United Iraqi Alliance was one of six major coalitions, grouping the most important of the Shiite religious parties. Shiites, although they constitute a majority of Iraqis, had never before had the prospect of real political power. Formed under the auspices of the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who appointed a six-man negotiating committee in an attempt to unite the Shiite vote, the UIA used the ayatollah's image relentlessly in its campaign advertising. Religious Shiites got the word to vote for "No. 169," the number given the UIA on the ballot, and were carefully informed that it was represented by the symbol for a candle. Its constituent parties, such as the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Dawa Party, had in the past struggled to create an Islamic republic under Saddam's harsh repression. Most of them were more used to the technique of the clandestine cell and the paramilitary strike than to the hurly-burly of public campaigning.
Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, an old asset of the American Central Intelligence Agency, led a list of ex-Baathists and secularists, both Shiite and Sunni. For those Iraqis who yearned for a strongman and valued law and order, Allawi's list had a certain appeal. In the north, the Kurdish parties formed a coalition that would attract virtually all of the Kurdish votes (they form about 15 percent of the Iraqi population). The Sunni Arab interim president, Ghazi al-Yawir, also formed a list, the "Iraqis," which had a decidedly secular cast.
The turnout for the elections was higher than had been predicted by the Iraqi Electoral Commission, which had suggested that about half of the eligible voters, or 6 to 7 million, would come out. By the Monday after the Jan. 30 elections, the commission was estimating that about 8 million, or 57 percent of the eligible voters, had cast ballots. This estimate was not founded on any exact statistics, which had to await the counting of the ballots, but appears to have been little more than a guess. The commission's earliest guess was 72 percent, a clear error. In any case, it seems clear that Kurds and Shiites came out in great numbers, and both will do well in Parliament.
As expected, voting was extremely light in the Sunni Arab areas. In Babil province, the trouble spots of Latifiyah and Mahmudiyah avoided violence, but few voters ventured out. The Arabs of Kirkuk, angry about a ruling allowing Kurds who used to reside in the city to vote in local elections, for the most part boycotted the process. In Mosul, the Arab quarters in the west saw firefights, though Kurds and Turkmens came out to vote in the eastern parts of the city. The four polling stations in Baghdad's Sunni Adhamiyah district did not even bother to open. Polling stations in Fallujah, Ramadi, Tikrit and Beiji were reported to be largely empty all day. In the sizable city of Ramadi, only 300 ballots were cast.
The Sunni Arabs of Samarra, a city of some 200,000, cast only 1,400 ballots. The U.S. military had conducted operations in Samarra in October as a prelude for its November campaign against Fallujah, insisting that these military actions would prepare the way for successful elections in these cities. Most of Fallujah was in refugee camps by the time of the elections, and a sullen and angry Sunni Arab population largely rejected the polls as illegitimate because they were conducted under foreign military occupation. The threats brandished by the remnants of the Baath military, which is waging a guerrilla war against the United States and the new order, also took their toll.
The guerrilla war being waged by some Sunni Arabs will not end with the elections. Their leadership is committed to destabilizing the country, pushing the Americans back out, and mounting yet another coup. The resistance consists largely of ex-Baath military along with some religious radicals (very few of whom are foreigners). They have enough munitions, money and know-how to fight for years, though in the end they will lose. The Sunni Arab populace continues largely to support the guerrillas. Over half in a recent poll said that attacks on the U.S. military in Iraq are legitimate.
