Friday, February 04, 2005

Shape of things in Iraq

THE SHAPE of things to come in Iraq remains blurred as the counting of the ballots cast in Sunday's elections has ended and the numbers and details are being fed into computers before the results are formally announced, perhaps next week. Political bargaining seems to have already started among groups on forming a coalition government based on an asusmption that no group would win a two-third majority in the polls. The insurgents are active, but the new reality of an elected assembly in the country could act as a counterforce against them, particularly given that the elections themselves seems to have given a new spirit to most Iraqis, writes 'Inad Khairallah
The Jan.30 elections in Iraq were generally hailed across the world as a success, mostly because millions of Iraqis turned out to vote despite the very real danger to their life posed by insurgents who had threatened to hit anyone and everyone who participated in the process.
Was it a success of the tight security arrangement organised by the US-led coalition forces?
Or was it a success because the Iraqis voted for the first time in 50 years in an environment free from coercion?
Or was it a success because relatively few people died in insurgent attacks on election day?
Or was it a success because the US showed the world that it could organise elections in a chaotic country like Iraq after messing it up?
Or was it a success because the election was the harbinger of American-style democracy in an Arab country that has known only autocracy in its recent history?
Above all, whose success was it?
Was it American? Was it Shiite? Was it Iraqi?
The answers to all these question might probably be: "A combination of all these and more."
US President George W Bush was to outline his plans for Iraq a few after print time, but no surprises were expected from him. His campaign to convince other world leaders that the new government emerging from the elections should be supported clearly indicated that he is staying the course without committing himself to any deadline for an American withdrawal from Iraq.
Simply put, there is no "exit strategy"; at least not yet.
In the meantime, questions are also many over the options of the various parties involved in Iraq, and all eyes are on the majority Shiite community led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani.
In an interview with Democracy Now! one day after the Jan.30 elections, respected British journalist Robert Fisk gave his assessment. Here are some major excerpts:
"As a person who is regularly cynical about the Middle East, and I think with good reason, it was a very moving experience to see so many hundreds and thousands of Shiite Muslims in Baghdad walking against the sound of bombs and mortar fire.
.".... The Shiites decided to vote. They abided by the instructions of the supreme Shiite leader, the marja, Ali Al Sistani who said it was more important to vote than fasting at Ramadan or prayer.
"The catch, of course, is that the Shiites were not voting for democracy, although they'd very much like to have it and believe in it. Many of them expressed their views forthrightly inside the polling station. They were coming to vote because Sistani told them to. 'We're coming to vote because we weren't allowed to do so before. We're coming to vote because we want the Americans to leave.'
"Now it is all very well for the American media that they came to vote for democracy. They probably did. But they also came because they think and believe and are convinced of the fact that by voting that they'll have a free country without an occupation force. If they are denied this, if they feel they are betrayed that their vote is worth nothing, of course a different question arises.
"What will they think of democracy and will they join the insurgency? "The Kurds, of course, voted for their own autonomy and they are the most pro-American of all Iraqis and in a sense, you see, although they voted in the Iraqi election, they were in a sense trying to continue to vote themselves out of Iraq. The more autonomy they had, and the flags you saw in the streets were Kurdistan not Iraqi, the nearer they are to the independents which Kurdish people have been demanding for so many decades. Indeed at least 200 years.
"So, what you've got was an election which showed immense courage on behalf of the Shiites. Perhaps less courage on the Kurds who anyways live in the most stable area of Iraq. Nonetheless, they went to vote and have been threatened in the past and a total abstention by Sunni Muslims and the latter, of course, is — this is the problem.
"If there is to be a national assembly, which is generally representative of the Iraqi people and this election was for a government, not for an assembly to choose a constitution, upon which there must be a referendum, another election for a new government, and then what is the legitimacy of a new parliament? It's 20 per cent of the population. The only section of the population which is actively and violently resisting the Americans is not represented. This is the real problem, you see. Either the Shiites are going to find themselves betrayed because what they want is not going to be forthcoming; of course they want to run the next government. They want to be -- they would like this to be a Shia country. They don't want an Islamic republic, but they want power because they are 60 per cent of the population and for 100 years, they haven't been able to be represented in that way.
"What this election has done is not actually a demonstration of people who demand democracy, but they want freedom of a different kind, freedom to vote, but also freedom from foreign occupation. And if they are betrayed in this, then we are going to look back and regret the broken promises. But certainly even the Iraqi soldiers guarding one of the polling stations and the fact that they were all wearing black hoods so they couldn't be identified tells you the dismal sense of security here with the same thing -- we want the Americans to go. But, of course, we're not seeing any promises to do that.
ghdad where the elections have just concluded.
"The issue is what is going to be the American involvement in providing Iraq with its next interim government. Again, I repeat this election was for a national assembly to write a constitution, which will have to be approved by a referendum, which in December there would then have to be another election for a real quote-unquote government.
The issue here you see is this: In the aftermath of these elections and we don't know the results and won't know them for days to come, it is quite possible that the administration here, which, of course, is effectively in the hands of the United States and here Ambassador (John) Negroponte will be involved, will try to form a government coalition. This would include certain leading Shiite politicians who won seats in yesterday's election. It would include some Sunnis who were running, in some cases, on Shiite tickets. This was a list system, proportional representation election, and of course, it would undoubtedly include some Kurds. Now, it would look very nice and democratic and free if a coalition government could include Shiites and Sunnis and Kurds. And that I'm sure is what the Americans would like to see. But then the largest Shiite alliance, which scored seats in the election, could turn out to be the official opposition and Shiites would then say, well, it is very nice to have this lovely coalition of all our ethnic groups. But we won the election. We are 60 per cent of the people and now we're in a coalition where we don't have the majority of power and our largest party is confined to being the opposition in parliament. And that, at the moment, is the biggest danger, that we're going to see such administrative refining of the results that we will produce and Westernise infinitely fair coalition government comprising Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds, but which will not represent the overall election results, which must show a Shiite majority.
"I mean there are actually members of the largest alliance of Shiite groups saying now that they are certain they've got more than 50 per cent of the vote.... . Now if that's the case, the Shiites will say, well hold on a second, we're the majority, we got the most votes, we got the greatest number of seats and you are making us part of a coalition and the biggest party of the opposition in parliament and that, of course, would then be betrayal just as it would be if they suddenly signed that the American and British and other foreign forces, they are not going to leave.
"So, we eventually – I mean we set up an enormous amount of expectations for this election. And I have got to admit, I have to admit having seen it and been there and walked with people to the polling stations in Baghdad, that the Shiites who wanted to vote did so unanimously and with great courage.
"Are they now going to be portrayed by the slippery process of coalitioning a government, which will suit the West, which will, of course, include Kurds and then of course must include some Sunnis as well or are they going to be effectively told, ok, the Shiites now have what you people in America like to call empowerment. This is now effectively a Shiite republic, not an Islamic republic, but this country is a Shiite country, which it is, of course, in real life. Will the election result, will the parliament, will the next government actually reflect the reality on the ground? If it does, then we are moving if it doesn't, then it would be better that the elections would not be held."
Fisk has been following the developments in Iraq firsthand and he should know. And there would not be many people who would disagree with his assessment.
For one thing, barring wholesale twisting, it is clear that the Sistani camp would emerge as the majority winner in the elections, and it will be Sistani who would be calling the shots on the shape of the next government.
Although it might take a few days more before the winners are announced, leaders of political parties have already started hard bargaining to form a new Iraqi government.
The United Iraqi Alliance, which has Sistani's backing, is likely to be pitted against a group led by the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, the race to form the government.
Both groups have pledge that they are committed to a secular Iraq and want all sects of the country to have a share in government.
There are Sunni candidates who are in the lists of both groups and their presence would lend legitimacy to the coalition government's set-up. However, Wednesday's declaration by the major Sunni alliance which called for a boycott of the polls that the Sunnis would not recognise the post-election government has thrown a major dampner on hopes of a smooth creation and functioning of an executive authority in the country.
The interim constitution says that the elected 275-member National Assembly must first choose a president and two deputies by a two-thirds majority. The president and deputies then pick a party or coalition, along with its choice of a prime minister, to form a government. Simply put, a two-third majority of the assembly is an absolute must for anyone hoping to gain power.
It is deemed unlikely that the Sistani camp would secure an absolute two-third majorty of the seats that it needs to form a government on its own. Leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance say the do have a formula to form a government, but Allawi's Iraqi List could foil their plans if it on its own or with coalition partners manage to secure more one third of the seats. It could then block emergence of the Shiite coalition to power.
Then there could only be a compromise:, Allawi offers himself to the coalition as a candidate for prime minister, or he could try to pick off members of the Shiite coalition and make a coalition for himself.
How would that go down with people like Ahmed Chalabi, who has a running conflict with Allawi?
In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether the success of the election is the beginning of the end of the insurgency since it seems to have given a newfound uplift to the mindset of the people of Iraq.
It all depends on how soon a government will be set up in Iraq and how the insurgents would deal with the new reality that, despite flaws, the country now has an assembly of elected representatives and would soon have a government.