Ignoring advice from some friends and rejecting pressure from many foes, Iraq’s interim government has just decided to hold the country’s first free elections on Jan. 30, 2005. The election is for a constituent assembly, a Kurdish regional assembly, and local assemblies for the country’s 18 provinces.
The decision was announced on the eve of this week’s international conference on the future of Iraq held in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. At least some participants had dropped hints that one of their objectives at the conference was to get the elections postponed until, in their words, “suitable conditions” for holding them were in place.
The camp of Saddam nostalgics had done all they could to derail the Iraqi elections. They even portrayed the hostage-takers and head-choppers that terrorize parts of Iraq as “la resistance” and insisted that they should have a place in shaping the future of the country.
Saddam nostalgics had, of course, prayed and worked for George W. Bush’s defeat in the US presidential election. The so-called Islamic Army “Jaish Al-Islam” gang of terrorists in Iraq had announced as early as last August that it was the duty of all true believers to ensure the defeat of George W. Bush and to prevent the holding of elections in Iraq.
With Bush re-elected, chances of sabotaging Iraq’s elections disappeared. But Saddam nostalgics would not give up that easily. Their next tactic was to call for a postponement of the election in the hope that Iraq would be plunged into civil war and chaos, enabling them to prove that they had been right in opposing US-led intervention in Iraq. The tactic failed because the new Iraqi leadership is convinced that the only way to put Iraq on a different course is to involve the mass of the people in decision-making. And that means holding elections.
According to Abdul-Hussein Al-Hindawi, a respected jurist who heads the independent election commission in Iraq, a total of 126 parties have registered to take part in the elections. These parties were chosen from among 198 applicants. The only condition required was that a party be able to collect the signatures of at least 500 registered voters. A glance at the list of the approved parties reveals the widest spectrum of political ideologies and programs. There are more than a dozen Islamist groups along with as many Communist and other leftist ones. Two dozen moderate and left-of-center groups and parties are also in the field along with conservative, liberal, nationalist, and social-democratic outfits. The only label absent is that of the dissolved Baath Party, the old national-socialist movement that was turned into an instrument for Saddam Hussein’s despotic power.
Paul Bremer, the American diplomat who headed the Coalition Provisional Authority until the formal end of the occupation last June, dissolved the Baath Party last year. At the time many of us believed that the banning Baath was neither necessary nor politically useful. The reason was that free Iraq did not need to fear a fascist party that had long lost its popular base. Banning Baath, on the other hand, could bestow on it a status of martyr that it does not deserve. The independent election commission understood this fact and decided to allow at least eight Baathist groups to field lists of candidates under different labels.
By sticking to the election timetable the new Iraqi leaders have shown that they will not let terrorists dictate the course of events. This is the second time in six months that they show such resolve. Last June they came under internal and external pressure to postpone the formal end of occupation and the formation of an interim government. A series of spectacular terrorist attacks made the month of June the bloodiest since liberation. But the transfer of power took place, nonetheless.
With the date of elections now fixed, expect the terrorist campaign to work toward a new crescendo. Also expect, Saddam nostalgics to do all they can either to disrupt the process or to discredit it. New Iraq, however, has enough self-confidence to cope with such threats. But this does not mean that other more serious dangers do not exist. It is in coping with those dangers that the ability of new Iraq to build a better life will be tested.
What are these dangers? Chief among them is the temptation by some of those now in power to bend the rules, if not actually cheat, to arrange the results of the elections in their favor. Having lived under successive despotic regimes since its creation as a state in 1921, Iraq lacks a culture of freedom, pluralism, and respect for the rule of law. Thus it would be foolish to assume that interim Prime Minister Iyad Al— Allawi and his Cabinet colleagues are democrats who put principle above personal considerations.
An election does not consist solely of putting ballot papers in a box. No election could be free without a proper campaign of information, debate and discussion. This is why it is important that all the parties and groups have adequate access to the heavy media that are still controlled by the government. It is also important that those in power do not use the resources of the state in support of their parties’ candidates.
The outside world must do whatever needed to make sure that the Iraqi elections are free and fair. This requires despatching a large number of monitors and observers. The Iraqi election commission has issued invitations to all those who wish to come and help monitor the election. Special invitations have been issued to the United Nations, the European Union, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the non-aligned movement, the Arab League, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, and more than a dozen nongovernmental organizations. So far, however, almost all have responded with a mixture of faked interest and cooked-up excuses for not playing a part. All those interested in bringing democracy to Iraq should spend the next few months urging the widest possible international participation in monitoring the elections. The US Congress and the parliaments of the other major democracies should take a lead by sending monitoring teams.
Iraq and its friends must also be on guard against attempts by foreign powers to influence the elections through illegal means. Iran, for example, is channelling money to half a dozen parties campaigning on sectarian platforms. Syria is promoting a couple of crypto-Baathist groups while Turkey is investing in an openly ethnicist Turcoman outfit. For their part, several Gulf states are writing checks for Sunni fundamentalist groups. Last but not least, the parties in power within the coalition government are using public funds, which in many cases mean aid from the United States, in support of an Iraqi version of pork-barrel politics.
Iraq’s first-ever free election is going ahead in the teeth of internal and external opposition from all those who, for different reasons, do not wish Iraq to become a democracy. The coalition of Saddam nostalgics will not admit defeat easily. It will do all it can to bring liberated Iraq to grief. The only way to defeat that coalition is to make sure that January elections are free and fair, and seen as such by the people of Iraq.
