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What a Shi'ite victory could
mean
By Charles Recknagel
PRAGUE - In recent days, Iraq's Shi'ite
politicians have spoken increasingly frankly about
the likelihood that the January 30 vote will
produce a Shi'ite-majority National Assembly. One
of the most prominent Shi'ite politicians, Abd
al-Aziz al-Hakim, says that Sunnis and all others
in Iraq will be included in the new government if
the Shi'ites win most of the assembly's 275 seats.
Hakim, the leader of the Shi'ite-based
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), heads one of the strongest candidate
lists in the poll, the United Iraqi Alliance. The
list, which includes candidates from Iraq's other
communities, is expected to get wide Shi'ite
support because it is endorsed by preeminent
Shi'ite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
But what will a Shi'ite victory in the
elections mean for Iraq's political development?
RFE/RL asked two Iraqi analysts for their
opinions.
Ammar al-Shahbander of the
Institute for War and Peace Reporting has spent
the past 16 months in Iraq and is now in London.
He said a Shi'ite win in the elections will mostly
be a "sentimental" victory for the community and
would not necessarily lead to Shi'ite political
dominance.
"Everybody is speaking of a
Shi'ite parliament, of a Shi'ite majority, or a
Shi'ite victory [because] this issue has a
sentimental value, because it's the first time the
Shi'ites have a real chance to participate in the
politics of Iraq. It is going to mean that this
parliament will have the highest percentage of
Shi'ites as individuals. It doesn't mean that the
Shi'ite will be there as one block and will form a
political majority," al-Shahbander said.
Al-Shahbander predicts that after the
Shi'ites win a majority of seats in the assembly,
the victory will be followed by new rounds of
coalition building that could help redress
imbalances from low Sunni participation in the
election. The activity could see Shi'ite secular
and religious parties that have come together for
the poll breaking ranks to forge new
intercommunity coalitions of their own.
"The current coalitions and the current
blocks, people who are joining together to enter
the election - that's only temporary, it's only
for the election. As soon as the election is over,
we will witness the abolition of these blocks and
the establishment of new blocks, and I am sure
these new blocks will surprise everyone,"
al-Shahbander said.
Mahmud Uthman, an
independent Kurdish politician and member of the
former Iraqi Governing Council, also sees new
rounds of coalition building as highly likely
after the election. He said the fact that many
candidate lists for the election are a mix of
Sunni, Shi'ite and Kurdish candidates favors a
future politics of shifting alliances that will
supersede single community interests.
"There will be different sorts of people
in the assembly, and things would come up in a
coalition [process]. I think a coalition will win,
not Shi'ites alone. The Shi'ites alone, maybe they
make up the majority of Iraqi people, but they are
on different lists. You see Shi'ites in all the
lists. You see Sunnis in all the lists. You see
Christians in almost all the lists. That's why the
danger of a Shi'ite win, as some people will put
it, I don't think it poses that much of a danger,
as such. But the danger is that some people will
participate in the election, others are against
it, and the violence will continue after the
election," Uthman said.
Insurgents - who
are most active in Sunni-populated areas - are
launching daily attacks to disrupt the elections,
claiming they are rigged by the United States. At
the same time, some Sunni community leaders have
called for a boycott of the vote over security
concerns or because they say the polls will hand
power to the Shi'ite majority at the Sunnis'
expense.
A top Iraqi official has warned
that a Sunni boycott of the poll could lead to
civil strife. Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib
said, "Boycotting means betrayal and the sparking
of civil war." He said that "if the National
Assembly does not represent all Iraqis, we will
enter civil war and division of the country".
The largest Shi'ite block to remain after
the election could be made up of religious
parties.
These parties, too, are divided
by rivalries - particularly between SCIRI and the
followers of radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr. The two camps have previously been at
odds as SCIRI has participated in Iraq's US-backed
interim administrations, while Muqtada's followers
have twice launched major insurrections against US
forces.
But the two groups - now both in
the United Iraqi Alliance - share an interest in
promoting a more Islamic form of government and
could become a formidable force working in that
direction.
Analysts say the Iraqi Shi'ite
parties stop short of espousing a theocracy like
that in neighboring Shi'ite Iran. But the Shi'ite
parties already participating in the interim
government - along with Sunni religious parties -
have pressed for giving a greater role to Sharia
(Islamic law) in Iraq's legal system and for
declaring Islam to be Iraq's state religion, while
still allowing followers of other religions to
worship freely.
Al-Shahbander calls some
of the religious parties' constitutional goals
"symbolic". But he said other goals, such as
encouraging religious people to enter politics,
could directly impact Iraq's political
development. "Having an Islamic state in Iraq, in
Iraqi terms, is much more symbolic rather than
real, ie stating in the constitution that the
religion of the state is Islam," he said. "In
reality, that doesn't mean anything because
religion is for practicing individuals. The other
aspect is to have religious individuals in power
because there is some sort of a belief that a
religious person would be honest and sincere and
would really serve the community."
Uthman
said that during his tenure on the US-appointed
Iraqi Governing Council, representatives of
secularist and religious parties often clashed -
including over whether Sharia should govern
divorce cases. But he said that he views the
religious parties as ultimately willing to work
within a consensus-based parliamentary system.
Security concerns
The chief UN
election official in Iraq, Carlos Valenzuela, said
he hopes security arrangements being made ahead of
the elections will help to make the ballot a
success. But Valenzuela admits that security could
be better.
"[The conditions for elections]
are not the best and certainly far from ideal," he
said. "But if the security conditions work, there
are very good chances the elections that take
place will take place successfully and that the
results will be accepted as credible and
legitimate. And we hope that will be the case."
Valenzuela said ongoing terrorist attacks
in Iraq are having an impact on the work of local
elections officials and could scare voters from
going to the polls. "The greatest fear is
obviously that of the security conditions. The
electoral commission needs to do a lot of work at
the local level and people there are working under
very difficult circumstances. So that's probably
our biggest concern right now. And of course, the
level of intimidation towards the voters that
might have an impact on voters coming out,"
Valenzuela said.
Iraq's interim government
has been attempting to enhance security in recent
days. It has issued orders to seal the country's
borders for three days ahead of the vote. Baghdad
International Airport also will be closed to
civilian traffic on the eve and day of the
elections. The Iraqi government also has extended
an existing curfew.
Both Iraqi and US
officials are refusing to comment on rumors
circulating in Baghdad on the whereabouts of the
man considered as the most wanted terrorist
suspect in Iraq - Jordanian-born al-Qaeda ally Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi. At a news conference in Baghdad
at the weekend, interim Iraqi Interior Minister
Falah al-Naqib was asked by reporters about rumors
that his forces had arrested Zarqawi. "I wouldn't
like to comment for the time being," he replied.
"Let us see. Maybe in a few days we'll make a
comment about it."
Meanwhile, an audio
recording allegedly made in Iraq by Zarqawi and
posted on an Islamist website declares a "bitter
war" against the elections. The speaker on the
tape urges Sunni Muslims to fight against the
ballot - calling it a plot against them by the
United States and Shi'ite Muslims.
Correspondents in the region report that
the voice on the recording sounds similar to
previous recordings attributed to -Zarqawi. US
officials have made no immediate comment about the
authenticity of the recording.
Zarqawi's
group, the al-Qaeda Organization for Holy War in
Iraq, has claimed responsibility for some of the
bloodiest attacks on US troops, Iraqi officials
and civilians - including numerous kidnappings and
the beheadings of several foreigners.
Sunni insurgents also have intensified
their attacks ahead of the elections in a bid to
disrupt the vote. But the leading candidate in a
Shi'ite alliance that is expected to dominate the
vote said that Shi'ites will not be dragged into a
civil war despite a series of bloody attacks
against them.
Hakim, head of the SCIRI,
said Zarqawi will not succeed in his efforts to
divide Iraqi Shi'ites and Sunnis. Hakim survived
an assassination last month - a suicide-bomb
attack on his party's headquarters that Zarqawi's
group claimed responsibility for. Hakim became
SCIRI leader after his brother Muhammad Baqir was
killed by a suicide bomb outside Shi'ite Islam's
holiest shrine in the city of Najaf in 2003. Hakim
says those attacks were attempts to spark civil
war.
Even in countries where the threat of
terrorism is lower than in Iraq, Iraqi voter
registration has fallen far short of the level
initially expected. The International Organization
for Migration (IOM), a group closely affiliated
with the United Nations, is in charge of
registering expatriate Iraqi voters in 14
countries. It announced that it is extending the
registration period by two days - until January
25.
IOM officials say a mere 10% of the
expected voters signed up in the first six days of
registration for expatriates. The IOM mainly
blames fear and apathy for what it has called a
"disappointing turnout" for registration.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio
Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW,
Washington DC 20036 |
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