Iraq+Elections

Iraq Elections: Fact Sheet I. History In February 2008, the Iraqi Parliament passed a Provincial Powers Act by a majority of one, with many members of parliament not present at the proceedings. It included giving the Prime Minister the power to dismiss a governor of a province, a measure that would have left considerable power in the hands of the Shi'a dominated central government in Baghdad. The Act required a Provincial Elections Law to be passed within the next 90 days and for elections to be held no later than the beginning of October 2008. The Presidency Council initially referred the law back, saying it did not comply with the constitutional rights of governorates. It was reported that vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi, whose Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council party is strong in many southern Iraqi governorate councils, particularly objected. However, the Council reversed its position following protests from the Sadrist Movement, saying they would instead seek changes to the law before it came into force. In July 2008 the Iraqi Election Commission proposed postponing the elections until December because delays in passing the election law had left too little time to prepare. The Provincial Elections bill was eventually approved by the Council of Representatives on 22 July 2008 despite a walkout by members of the Kurdistani Alliance over a clause making Kirkuk Governorate council a power-sharing arrangement. The next day the Presidency Council of Iraq, consisting of President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shi'ite Arab, and Vice-President Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab, unanimously agreed to reject the bill because of the Kirkuk clause, and send it back to the Council of Representatives to reconsider. The second draft was ratified by the Presidency Council on 7 October 2008, who stated that a minority clause may be added later. A minority clause was added on 3 November. 2009:  • Governorate/ Provincial elections were held on January 31, 2009 in Iraq • Were to replace the local councils in 14 of the 18 governorates of Iraq that were elected in 2005 • There are 14,431 candidates -3,912 women -444 contested seats -400 parties (75% were newly formed) • There were 15 million eligible voters, but hundreds of thousands of voters were omitted from the ballot lists. Mithal al-Alusi, a Sunni Arab nationalist MP, complained that there were "many mistakes" by the Commission and Iranian diplomats had been allowed entry to polling stations. • There were international observers in every one of the 712 constituencies - the first election since the invasion of Iraq to be fully observed • Unlike the 2005 election, there was no boycott by any significant political movement; however, turnout was down on the previous election at slightly over 51%. ISCI blamed the election day vehicle ban, which meant voters often had to walk long distances to the polling centers. • Official results were not expected until days after the election. Early indications were that the Islamic Dawa Party turned as largest party in Shi'a south. • The Dawa Party was the biggest in all Shi'ite governorates except for Karbala. Sadrists and the SCIRI didn't manage to win a single govornorate. II. Challenges: [counterterrorismblog.org] • Since February 1963, the Baathist regime in Baghdad eliminated free elections for forty years until it was removed in 2003 by US and Coalition forces. Then in four years as of 2005, the population was allowed to cast their ballots four times! In January 2005, provincial councils and a national assembly were elected. In October of that year, a referendum confirmed the constitution. In December, parliamentary elections followed. This weekend 15 million voters will select the provinces assemblies and towards the end of the year another vote will bring a new parliament and decide on the US-Iraqi defense treaty. This is more electoral exercise than in Switzerland, even though the anti-democratic forces are still a direct threat to the system. • 2) The Jihadist forces of Iraq, including Al Qaeda, dislike the rise of a democratic culture and the pro-Iranian militants plan on using the system to their advantage. Violence may erupt, more likely in diverse areas such as the Diyala province or in cities such as Mosul. But here again the preparedness of Iraqi forces, assisted by the Coalition, will tell about the readiness of the country to manage its own elections in the future.  • 3) The level of participation will tell us if popular trust in elections is taking root and any numbers higher than 60 % will confirm this. • 4) Iraq's electoral landscape is diverse: Kurdistan will vote en masse and their two coalitions will seize the assemblies. Participation by Christian and other minorities such as Turkomen will tell us more about future diversity in Kurdistan. In the center, the rise in participation among Sunnis will tell us more about the success of the anti-Al Qaeda element, but the final results will show the shape of future Sunni politics in Iraq. In the largest provinces of the center and the south, the distribution of seats between pro-Iranians, moderates, and reformists will indicate the real winners in these elections. Whoever would win among Shia will determine the type of relationship Iraq will have with the United States in the next few years. But Kurdish and Sunni Arab provinces can deprive any Shia party from returning the country as a whole to dictatorship. • 5) These elections will produce a new majority in Iraq, which will be always determined by coalition building. However, one result cannot be reversed anymore; no more return to single party dictatorship. Iraq may break in pieces, but it will never return to a Saddam-like monstrosity; and that is what authoritarians in contiguous countries fear the most. The seeds of elections are now planted in Mesopotamia. With more than 140 political party and associations, hundreds of newspapers, publications, dozens of radio and TV stations — a mosaic is in existence. It will be hard on the IranianMullahs and on Al Qaeda to crush all this diversity across the Shia, Sunni, Kurdish and Christian lines. Once young Iraqis who will be voting for the first time, women who have broken the walls of gender exclusiveness, and minorities emerging from the underground, have tasted and tested this democratic exercise - a resistance to fascism and totalitarianism is born. Fundamentalism is said to have lost some support as an increasing number of Iraqis (41% in the latest poll) said they prefer secular parties over religious ones. But let's be realistic, these are the early baby steps of Iraqi democracy, and as long as the Iranian and Syrian regimes are working on undermining the growing democratic culture inside their neighbor, and as long as Wahabis and Salafis are receiving Petro Dollars from the Arabia Peninsula to impose an Emirate in the Sunni Triangle — the menace against the "Democratic Republic" is as real as the difficult times experienced by Western democracies as they emerged in Europe and the Americas. · 6) Which bring us to the Obama administration's "Iraq Plan:" If they have already committed to the 16 months withdrawal program, so be it; but the new White House should keep in mind that hurdling out of that country without establishing real Iraqi defenses against the menacing wolves on the eastern and western borders and the Jihadi corridor from the south, will kill the forthcoming chances of a real change in the region. The debate about why and when should we have helped Iraq against its bullies is now in the hands of historians, but as President Obama announced in his inaugural address, the destinies of that country should be secured in the hands of the "Iraqi people," not the Mullahs in Tehran or Assad of Syria. These elections are probably the last before American military begins to redeploy inside and from Iraq. The challenge for the U.S. administration is to empower Iraqis to enjoy such exercises in democracy many times more, instead of falling into obscure times again.