The passage to democracy in Iraq

"We're having elections on January 30th. It is a historical moment." - George W. Bush.

The three-pronged elections in Iraq to elect a 275-member transitional assembly, a 111-member Kurdistan Parliament and undertake provincial elections to select local councils for each of Iraq’s 18 provinces, will take place in Iraq on January 30, 2005. The role of the transitional assembly is to draft a constitution and put it to a referendum before holding full constitutional elections in October 2005.

On the surface, this is a remarkable milestone, not only for the nation of Iraq, but for the Middle East where democracy has long been a traditional taboo. It is also a milestone for the greater war on terror. With mass terror - described by many as outright civil war - on the streets of Ramadi, Mosul and many other predominantly Sunni districts of Iraq, the election bandwagon rolls on. However, as with the selection of the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), drafted in March 2004, this may prove to be merely another propaganda victory for the US. 

Many of the Sunni population have not registered to vote, either through choice or through fear, and many Sunni parties have boycotted the elections outright. It is ironic that as one group is calling for a boycott of the elections, another group (Shia) is issuing Fatwa’s (religious decree) for participation in the upcoming elections. For the Sunnis this represents a step back from their days of uncontested dominance and power but conversely for the Shia population this represents their first real opportunity to escape the chain of political oppression experienced under many years of Ottoman and Sunni rule.

Crucially, in Iraqi Kurdistan, elections are taking place without adequate representation. Results in Kirkuk, however democratic they may seem, will be effectively useless, simply because only inhabitants of the city, and the immediate surrounding area, will be adequately represented. Massaud Barzani, the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, through the party mouthpiece al-Taakhi was quoted as saying that the disproportionate representation in certain provinces, coupled with the current violence means that “carrying out the poll under the existing unstable security situation is not feasible and is fruitless”. Many key politicians feel despondent. The prominent Sunni candidate, Adnan Pachachi, recently added his voice for delaying the elections claiming that the current climate “will leave a large segment of the population disenfranchised and many regions under represented”. In essence, the conditions in Iraq will not be conducive to a representative election. It will not give a true picture of the overall opinions and desires of the Iraqi community.

The TAL and its implementation

The TAL was hailed as significant milestone, which set Iraq on the path to plurality, compromise and harmony. However, not much has been achieved in principle. The fundamental reasons are simple: the signing of the TAL was long delayed; it was only signed with considerable diplomatic pressure from the US; and even more importantly was finally signed with an enormous reservation from the majority group in Iraq - the Shia and their revered spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

The TAL never represented democracy and agreement in Iraq and many of the key articles have not, and probably never will be, implemented. The crucial article is 58, which refers to the Arabisation policy of the former Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and its due and justified reversal. However, article 58, which directly referred to Kirkuk, has not seen a single claim processed by the commission charged with dealing with the thousands of displaced Kurdish families. Yet elections are going ahead. Furthermore, according to article 53 of the TAL, only Kurds residing in the areas of the current Kurdish self-rule zone (Duhok, Arbil and Suleimanyia provinces) are eligible to vote in the upcoming Kurdistan parliamentary elections, effectively leaving thousands of Kurds who have returned to areas around Kirkuk, Khanaqin and Mosul without representation, and without a voice in their own assemblage.

Crucially, the significance that the TAL portrayed was further undermined when under pressure from Sistani, the TAL was completely omitted from UN resolution 1456 and was in essence largely nullified.

The Kurdish Alliance and the Iraqi Electoral List

Two of the major Kurdish parties, the KDP and PUK have joined to form the Kurdistan Alliance along with the Islamic Party and a number of other smaller parties. They will take part as a joint list in the election to select a transitional Iraqi assembly and also in the selection of a Kurdish parliament.

As far as the latter is concerned, this is essentially democracy but with a pre-determined result. The two major parties are likely to split a proportion of the seats in the new Kurdistan Parliament for themselves and give another fixed proportion to the remainder of the smaller parties. They will essentially sit in the Iraqi National Assembly as one bloc and one voice for the whole Kurdish population. This is understandably necessary to ensure that Kurdish gains of the past 14 years are safeguarded and that further Kurdish gains in the new Iraq will be maximised, however, this is not good democracy.

The majority of the 15-million strong Shia community and the likely benefactors of the elections will be represented under the Unified Iraqi Alliance - a group amalgamated and supported by the influential Sistani himself. This group will be headed by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the current leader of the Iranian backed Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri). Some Sunni parties chose to fulfil their threat of boycotting the elections but a number of parties registered on the day of the deadline for registration. The main Sunni dominated alliance will be spearheaded by Pachachi and represented by the Iraqi Independent Democrats Party.

When analysing the Iraqi electoral list, it becomes apparent that the party list submitted to the Iraqi Electoral commission is essentially a combination of loose coalitions designed to gain the maximum advantage for each major group in Iraq.

With the exception of the KDP, PUK and some other major Shia parties, the lists consist of too many small parties and delegates and a range of loose alliances. It is not the same as Western democracy when two or three parties with established manifestos and popular support fight for the polls. This is simply, an indicator of the largely fragmented Iraqi society and lack of coherent voices from each major group. Even when the elections are over and the first democratic steps have been taken, no government will be truly representative of Iraq and cater for the needs of the greater nation. This will naturally only lead to disharmony and further bloodshed in Iraq, most probably in the form of sectarianism and civil war.

Post-election inevitability

There is one key problem in Iraq: Iraq itself is a British fabricated country that is loosely based on three former Ottoman provinces. There are three distinct groups in Iraq, which have never lived in harmony since its formation - the Kurds, Shia and Sunni. Each separate group is weary of conceding too much, and being oppressed by the others. With no concensus between each group, and a lack of common understanding and appreciation of the desires of one another, true democracy and co-existence is difficult if not impossible, no matter how much democratic progress is made in the country.

If the principles of democracy were applied to the area represented by each group then there could be a chance of achieving a successful outcome. When applied to Iraq as a whole, they will lead to inevitable post-ballot implications.

In any future Iraqi parliament, there will be too much pressure on the politicians of each respective ethnic group to work for their own group rather than the whole.

This is particularly true of the Kurdish region. In the Kurdish controlled area the cries and calling of the politicians are certainly in Kurdish, however, in the Iraqi government these same politicians will have to converse in the name of the greater Iraq and the majority. An example of these divided loyalties is Hoshyar Zebari who has been a senior Kurdish politician for many years, and is also the Iraqi Foreign Minister, and therefore a representative of greater Iraq.

In this situation, political disharmony will have already begun before the politicians have opened the doors to the parliament. Most likely, politicians will decide to enter parliament with a degree of compromise and perhaps resentment. Democracy in Iraq would work best with a very loose federation, bordering on independence, for each federative area representing each of the three major groups.

The Shia population

What is most likely is a Shia victory in the forthcoming Iraqi elections as the Shias form about 60 per cent of the population and therefore a clear majority. This likelihood has been hesitantly confirmed by the US, which has always tried to avoid, and to an extent deny, that an Islamic government will be formed. Colin Powell, in Middle East Online, claimed the future government is likely to be in a form “that may be majority Shia, but respects the rights of others”.

Furthermore, Powell stated swiftly but without a lack of conviction that the Shia bloc will not be influenced by the regional Shia powerhouse of Iran. A Shia grip on power and domination of the parliament would clearly lead to dissatisfaction among the rest of the Iraqi community. Shias would choose to implement an Islamic state and thus many of their own policies, eradicating century old repression and seizing the chance to cement power. The Kurds would tolerate this as long as they maintained their federal unit of Kurdistan with Kirkuk as its capital and with a due proportion of the federative budget and natural resources.

For the Sunni community, who will clearly be under-represented in the elections in the current climate, democracy represents only uncertainty and a confirmation of their now inferior status in Iraq. This is in complete contrast to their 80-years of domination and rule in Iraq. With so much lost  and so much more to lose, and a lack of clarity on their future status, the violence, boycotting of elections and discomfort they feel is inevitable. Anything but a democratic election would serve their purpose.

The Shia coalition, spearheaded by al-Hakim, as the likely winners of the vote, have tried their best to reassure their Sunni brethren and have emphasised that the “participation of all” is essential for the new government.

In addition Iraq's predominantly Arab-Sunni neighbours are concerned that the Sunni community will be sidelined in any new undertakings and are slowly beginning to exert diplomatic influence on the electoral process, aware that for many of these aforementioned regional Sunni countries with Kurdish minorities, a great Kurdish representation in a future Iraq would spell danger and potential instability. And in addition an overall Shia majority will undoubtedly side with Iran and in turn shift the regional balance of power in the habitually volatile Middle East.

Conclusion

The arrangement, logistics and staging of the elections will prove to be much easier to manage than the actual result, even in the current context of violence and trepidation in Iraq.

The results of these democratic elections are are inevitable and there is a feeling of gloom. What may appear to be the first steps to a true democracy in the Middle East may actually just be an excellent propaganda coup for the US occupation forces who believe that stability, democracy and crucially a victory, could be accomplished in Iraq with considerable ease. They find themselves looking at ways to cut their stay short. A three state solution has been proposed many times for Iraq, and unfortunately, given the current context and the relative disparity of the Iraqi community, only this solution would ensure that a true democracy could be established.

A good example of the lack of traditional democracy is the Kurdish Referendum Movement, which advocates a referendum on a separate Kurdish state. Although it has collected 1.7 million signatures, it has been largely ignored - it would be impossible to ignore such a large number in a real democracy.

How the new Iraqi transitional assembly can ever ensure that every group is happy or bind these groups together remains a burning question.

The interim government to its credit has put on a plucky and spirited front and tried with considerable effort to ensure overall participation and success of the elections, which according to Zebari “will consolidate national unity”. However, looks can be deceiving and no one will under estimate the immediate task they face in the rocky transitional road to democracy.

Only time will tell if the elections in Iraq will prove to be a success, what is clear is that the writing on the wall, painted with the blood of many Iraqis, is becoming more and more visible.