Winners and Losers in Iraq
Editorial
The New York Times
December 26, 2005
The final votes must still be counted in Iraq, but the trend is already clear. The biggest winners appear to be the Shiite religious parties whose politicians have run the ministries and whose militias have run the streets of southeastern Iraq for a year or more. The Kurdish separatist parties that supported this arrangement in exchange for absolute control of the Kurdish northeast also appear to have fared well.
Sunni Arabs did a lot better than they did last January, when most boycotted the polls. But political fragmentation left them with fewer seats than they expected. In a further blow, a court ruled last week that at least 90 candidates, most of them Sunni, could not serve if elected because of their Baath Party ties. Still, the biggest losers were secular parties and those who tried to appeal to all of Iraq's communities, not just one religion or ethnic group.
Anyone who hoped that Iraq's broadest exercise in electoral democracy so far might strengthen women's rights, secular protections or national unity will be disappointed. But anyone who expected such gains cannot have been paying attention to recent developments in Iraq.
Iraqi politics are settling into an unsettling pattern. Very few people vote as Iraqis; most vote as Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds. It is progress that Sunni Arabs turned out in large numbers, but that may not be enough to assure them a meaningful role in reshaping a dangerously divisive constitution and forming a broad-based government. If the Shiite parties can keep the support of their Kurdish allies and pick up a few independents, they may be able to assemble a two-thirds majority without Sunni participation and resist the changes Iraq badly needs.
That would be a disastrous choice, foreclosing the possibility of containing the insurgency through political means and dimming the prospects for Iraq's survival as a stable, unified state. But it's a disaster that could be avoided if the victorious parties summoned the sense to reach out to a Sunni Arab community that now has one foot in the political process and the other in the insurgency.
The strong vote for the Shiite religious parties does not necessarily mean that Iraqis have abruptly turned fundamentalist. What it does prove is that the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Dawa Islamic Party have out-organized, outfought and outmaneuvered rival parties in the Shiite-majority provinces. These two parties enjoyed multiple advantages, including decades of help from Iran, inclusion by the American occupation authorities in the appointive Governing Council, the strong endorsement of Iraq's leading Shiite ayatollah and backing from intimidating armed party militias.
Their main secular rivals, Ayad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi, showed few political skills and came with baggage. Mr. Allawi, Washington's latest favorite, made more enemies than friends when he served last year as interim prime minister. Mr. Chalabi, the earlier American protégé, was distrusted by fellow Shiites because of his ceaseless scheming and loathed by Sunnis for his campaign against anyone even remotely connected to the old Baath Party.
What happens next will be largely up to the leaders of Sciri and Dawa. Their biggest challenge will be redeeming the pledge made to Sunni leaders that the current flawed constitution will be radically amended. New language must guarantee that all oil revenues flow to the central government for fair distribution, that laws and policies that discriminate against Sunnis, including prohibitions against former Baathists, are eliminated and that private militias - some now incorporated into the Iraqi Army and police - are disarmed and disbanded. The legal rights of women, currently in limbo between civil and religious law, need reinforcement
The victorious Kurdish parties need to face up to their larger responsibilities. If they continue providing the margin for shutting Sunni Arabs out of power, they could alienate the American support on which the security of their northeastern enclave depends.
The Sunni parties need to face practical political realities, starting with demographic math. It remains an article of faith among Sunni Arabs that their real share of the Iraqi population is far higher than the 20 percent everyone else places it at. They are right to demand fair treatment and a real share of power, but not right to insist that fraud is the only possible explanation for their failure to win more parliamentary seats. The last thing they should be talking about is reviving the electoral boycott strategy that cost them so heavily earlier this year.
It is in everyone's interest to draw the Sunni Arab community more deeply into political life, not to shut it out. Otherwise, Iraq's future will be civil war and this election will have no real winners.
The New York Times
December 26, 2005
The final votes must still be counted in Iraq, but the trend is already clear. The biggest winners appear to be the Shiite religious parties whose politicians have run the ministries and whose militias have run the streets of southeastern Iraq for a year or more. The Kurdish separatist parties that supported this arrangement in exchange for absolute control of the Kurdish northeast also appear to have fared well.
Sunni Arabs did a lot better than they did last January, when most boycotted the polls. But political fragmentation left them with fewer seats than they expected. In a further blow, a court ruled last week that at least 90 candidates, most of them Sunni, could not serve if elected because of their Baath Party ties. Still, the biggest losers were secular parties and those who tried to appeal to all of Iraq's communities, not just one religion or ethnic group.
Anyone who hoped that Iraq's broadest exercise in electoral democracy so far might strengthen women's rights, secular protections or national unity will be disappointed. But anyone who expected such gains cannot have been paying attention to recent developments in Iraq.
Iraqi politics are settling into an unsettling pattern. Very few people vote as Iraqis; most vote as Shiites, Sunnis or Kurds. It is progress that Sunni Arabs turned out in large numbers, but that may not be enough to assure them a meaningful role in reshaping a dangerously divisive constitution and forming a broad-based government. If the Shiite parties can keep the support of their Kurdish allies and pick up a few independents, they may be able to assemble a two-thirds majority without Sunni participation and resist the changes Iraq badly needs.
That would be a disastrous choice, foreclosing the possibility of containing the insurgency through political means and dimming the prospects for Iraq's survival as a stable, unified state. But it's a disaster that could be avoided if the victorious parties summoned the sense to reach out to a Sunni Arab community that now has one foot in the political process and the other in the insurgency.
The strong vote for the Shiite religious parties does not necessarily mean that Iraqis have abruptly turned fundamentalist. What it does prove is that the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the Dawa Islamic Party have out-organized, outfought and outmaneuvered rival parties in the Shiite-majority provinces. These two parties enjoyed multiple advantages, including decades of help from Iran, inclusion by the American occupation authorities in the appointive Governing Council, the strong endorsement of Iraq's leading Shiite ayatollah and backing from intimidating armed party militias.
Their main secular rivals, Ayad Allawi and Ahmad Chalabi, showed few political skills and came with baggage. Mr. Allawi, Washington's latest favorite, made more enemies than friends when he served last year as interim prime minister. Mr. Chalabi, the earlier American protégé, was distrusted by fellow Shiites because of his ceaseless scheming and loathed by Sunnis for his campaign against anyone even remotely connected to the old Baath Party.
What happens next will be largely up to the leaders of Sciri and Dawa. Their biggest challenge will be redeeming the pledge made to Sunni leaders that the current flawed constitution will be radically amended. New language must guarantee that all oil revenues flow to the central government for fair distribution, that laws and policies that discriminate against Sunnis, including prohibitions against former Baathists, are eliminated and that private militias - some now incorporated into the Iraqi Army and police - are disarmed and disbanded. The legal rights of women, currently in limbo between civil and religious law, need reinforcement
The victorious Kurdish parties need to face up to their larger responsibilities. If they continue providing the margin for shutting Sunni Arabs out of power, they could alienate the American support on which the security of their northeastern enclave depends.
The Sunni parties need to face practical political realities, starting with demographic math. It remains an article of faith among Sunni Arabs that their real share of the Iraqi population is far higher than the 20 percent everyone else places it at. They are right to demand fair treatment and a real share of power, but not right to insist that fraud is the only possible explanation for their failure to win more parliamentary seats. The last thing they should be talking about is reviving the electoral boycott strategy that cost them so heavily earlier this year.
It is in everyone's interest to draw the Sunni Arab community more deeply into political life, not to shut it out. Otherwise, Iraq's future will be civil war and this election will have no real winners.
posted by Hanan Elbadry at 9:32 AM
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