Yoel Guzansky
The importance of the recent elections in Iraq cannot be overstated. Even if their legitimacy was challenged by the disqualification of candidates, bribery, arrests, and even murders, the very fact that elections took place is significant and, the results will largely determine the character of the state during and after the withdrawal of the American forces.
Yet despite the inherent importance in going to the polls, how the political forces will divvy up the loot is of at least equal significance. The process of putting together a government and choosing Iraq’s next prime minister is expected to be long and complex. Only once it is over will it be possible to assess to what extent the Iraqi people has adapted to the transition of government and the division of authority without resorting to violence.
One of the primary concerns is that in the course of the political negotiations, expected to last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, the inter-ethnic tensions will grow and Iraq will see a return to a previous level of violence. Even if the general level of violence in Iraq has gone down – some contend it has gone down as much as possible – the elections brought about an increase in the violence, a situation that is liable to get worse because of the political vacuum expected to prevail in the course of seating a government (the Iraqi constitution does not provide a solution for the interim period between the elections and the installation of a new government). The conditions that prevail in the coming months will to a large extent determine if the Americans will be able to withdraw about half of its 100,000 troops still left in Iraq by the end of August 2010.
The terrorist attacks before and during elections, however, did not color the elections as much as did the Iraqi government’s actions over recent months, actions that made a significant portion of the 19 million eligible voters (to date, the data indicates 50-60 percent voter turnout) decide not to take advantage of their rights, whether out of despair with the level of corruption of the central government or because of a lack of trust in its capability of providing relief on the issues that concern them most: basic services, employment, and personal security. Nonetheless, Iraqi politics, freer and more secular than in the past, have come a long way since the last parliamentary elections in 2005; their fault lines are not fully congruent with the ethnic fault lines of the past. Indeed, more and more candidates (out of more than 6,000) adopted a secular platform, and the parties (80 of them) were composed of candidates of all the ethnic groups competing for a seat in a parliament expanded to 325 seats in order to enhance the proportional representation of the Kurds and the Sunnis.
However, despite the relative progress towards more political freedom, it seems that the seeds of destruction were sown long before the first polls opened. The Iraqi prime minister made use of public funds, the courts, and even the army in order to advance his political standing. Thus, the Accountability and Justice Commission – whose legal status is unclear and whose two leaders, Chalby and al-Lami, themselves election candidates, were accused by the Americans of serving as proxies for the Iranians (the latter was even in prison for a year for involvement with terrorism) – was asked to make sure that in accordance with Paragraph 7 of the Iraqi constitution, there would be no members of the former Baath party among the candidates.
The Commission also disqualified hundreds of candidates, most of them Sunnis or secular Shiites. This contentious move made some of the Sunni candidates call for boycotting the elections – a step that would have strengthened Iran’s indirect influence on any future Iraqi parliament. However, when they saw that their call was going largely unheeded, or because of external pressure, they changed course and for the first time called on their supporters to participate in the elections. Moreover, a few days before the elections, al-Maliki, who according to one estimate sought to increase the number of his voters, declared that he intends to return 20,000 officers from among Saddam’s stalwarts to active service. More than in the past the Sunnis have come to feel that having only one foot firmly planted inside the political game has merely hurt them. It remains to be seen if they will stay outside the circle of violence, even if the official election results exclude them from the major power centers.
According to estimates, no political bloc is expected to win a majority of the 163 parliamentary seats, and this will further extend the coalition building process. A prevalent estimate is that the two leading blocs will be the one headed by Shiite prime minister al-Maliki, who commands some 40 parties, and the al-Iraqiya list headed by his rival Iyad Allawi (a secular, pro-Western Shiite and a former Iraqi primer minister). This year, the two traditional Kurdish parties have been joined by a third party threatening to erode their status. Even the “national coalition,” which also includes Muqtada al-Sadr’s pro-Iranian party, is expected to win many votes from among the Shiites in the south.
Not only are the political forces inside Iraq preparing for the day after the American withdrawal. For Iraq’s neighbors these elections will affect the country’s character for years to come and therefore they all intervened in one way or another, whether via direct financial assistance, propaganda, or fraud and bribery, in order to turn the future government of Iraq into a more sympathetic one from their perspective. The assessment is that among its neighbors, Iran enjoys the greatest influence over Iraq, and it is not inconceivable that Iran will emerge as the big winner from these elections. Whatever the outcome, Iran has made sure to promote relations with many power groups in Iraq, and at present is already enjoying the status of a mediator and arbitrator in Iraqi politics. Interestingly, departing his from previous practice, senior Shiite cleric Ayatollah Sistani refused, at least publicly, to align himself with any political bloc.
The pictures of throngs of poll-going Iraqis waving ink-stained fingers who voted despite the acts of terrorism are a victory – albeit symbolic and limited in time – for the Americans’ “Iraqi project.” It now has a limited opportunity to institutionalize the long term relations with the new Iraqi leadership, which can serve the interests of both nations and decrease Iran’s influence in the region. However, the window of opportunity will not remain open for long; to a large extent, it is closing with the gradual withdrawal of forces from Iraq.
The coming months will determine who will hold the winning hand: the supporters of Iraqi nationalism at home and abroad or those who oppose a stable secular, democratic state. To what extent the Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds have managed to answer cardinal questions – of territoriality as well as those concerning the division of oil profits – affecting the unity and stability of Iraq remains open. And while it was a refreshing change not to know the elections results of an Arab state in advance, the Iraqi experience has been, at least to date, that it is precisely the use of democratic tools that has increased rather than eased existing tensions.
If what happened in the months leading up to the election is any indication of things to come, then one may say that Iraq remains trapped in a political culture of a zero-sum game, and that everyone – most of all the Iraqi citizen – has reason to be concerned.
