By most accounts Iraq’s parliamentary elections, which took place on Sunday, were a resounding success. With over 60 percent turnout, voters sent a positive message to the world and to all Iraqis. The country, marred by years of violence, foreign interference and sectarian strife, was now slowly entering a new phase, still fraught with challenges, but not without a renewed sense of hope.
Success is a relative quality when it comes to Iraq. There were bloody attacks against civilians before and on polling day, aimed at intimidating voters, but they were fewer than expected. Political tension that had surrounded the election campaign and the controversy over banning key Sunni candidates from running could still be felt, but there were no major boycotts and turnout among Sunnis was high.
While official results will not be released for few weeks, the new government will take much longer to form. The elections triggered a process of political restructuring that could lead to deadlock and uncertainty. The reason for this is that fundamental changes have taken place within each of the three main components of the Iraqi population. Arab Sunnis have pinned their hopes on the secular coalition, the Al-Iraqiya List, headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a moderate Shiite, who has allied himself with Tareq Al-Hashimi, one of the president’s two vice presidents, and a leading Sunni politician.
Iraq’s Sunnis make up between 20 to 30 percent of the population, but this includes the Kurds who enjoy an autonomous status in three northern provinces and vote for their own Kurdish parties. On the other hand, most of Iraqi refugees, numbering between two to four million, are Sunni Arabs. Their votes will surely go to the Al-Iraqiya List.
Even the Kurds, who historically vote for a coalition of two main tribal-based parties, one of which is headed by President of Iraq Jalal Talabani, had a strong new comer on the scene. The Goran-Kurdish for “change” — is a third political force, the result of a split in Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), is believed to have done well in the elections and will probably claim no less than 15 seats in the new 325-seat Parliament. Kurds now have 53 seats, but with Goran and other smaller Kurdish parties contesting the elections the traditional alliance of PUK and Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) will surely come out battered.
The Kurdish internal power struggle will be one of the major factors in shaping the new coalition government in Baghdad. The Kurds have played their cards right in the past, joining Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki’s government but not before securing important concessions for themselves.
Goran, headed by a former deputy chief of the PUK, Nawshirwan Mustafa, still supports the major causes of the other leading parties, mainly a bigger share of the north’s oil and a claim to Kirkuk, but it has attempted to lure non-Kurdish voters by suggesting conciliatory steps to accommodate Arabs in the future.
Not to repeat the mistake of boycotting the 2005 elections, Kirkuk’s Arabs have also mobilized to contest the elections in an attempt to circumvent Kurdish claims to the province, which has become an Arab-Kurdish fault line.
Meanwhile, the Shiite majority, in the south and in Baghdad, seem to be more united than before. The incumbent Prime Minister’s State of Law Coalition List is believed to have done well in Shiite strongholds. Its only contender is the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which is one of the Shiite parties grouped in the Iraqi National Alliance (INA). With Moqtada Sadr’s fundamentalist movement downsized, Al-Maliki’s alliance is claiming a sizable lead in the south over other parties and it is likely that his coalition will emerge as the ultimate winner.
With more than 6,000 candidates and over 85 political parties contesting the elections this will prove to be the most important development in Iraq’s post-invasion history. For starters, the holding of the elections was a key milestone in President Barack Obama’s strategy to begin troop withdrawal from Iraq this summer, seven years after the US invasion.
His administration will use its leverage to ensure that a new Iraqi government is formed within the coming two months so that the generals can begin their troop cutback plans. The biggest challenge will be to influence Baghdad’s politicians and power brokers to cut a deal and bring a new government to light. This will not be easy.
Each of the so-called ethnic and sectarian components of the Iraqi mosaic will want a cut in a future deal. This is an almost impossible task to achieve. And then there are new elements to the power game; chief among them is the increase in the powers and authorities of the office of the president. The current debate is over allocation of gains and titles on sectarian basis. The Allawi alliance presented itself as an initiative to go beyond that system on the basis of citizenship. This will prove to be the biggest challenge for the future of Iraq.
Iraqis will find themselves at a dangerous crossroad once election results are announced and power brokering begins. Between satisfying Kurdish nationalist claims, Kirkuk being the next battleground, healing the Shiite-Sunni rift, dealing with foreign influence, mainly Iranian and American, and ridding the country of corruption, nepotism and militants including loyalists to the ancient regime and not excluding Al-Qaeda, the next phase promises to be tough and painful.
But there is hope still and perhaps Baghdad’s politicians will soon understand the message that over 11.5 million Iraqi voters decided to send!
— Osama Al Sharif is a veteran journalist and political commentator based in Jordan.
