“Elections do not make democracies. Democracies make elections.”¹ - Edwin Black, author of Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq’s 7,000-Years History of War, Profit, and Conflict

Violence is expected during the elections

Iraq’s upcoming elections, scheduled for January 30, will be held amidst exceptional security precautions and in an increasingly polarized and emotionally-charged political climate. The elections will decide the makeup of a new Iraqi assembly, responsible for drafting a constitution and forming a government to run the country under the patronage of hundreds of thousands of foreign troops. The grim political and security situation in Iraq suggests the upcoming elections will not live up to their hype. Most analysts agree that the elections are simply another over-publicized event in a series of events touted by occupation authorities as indicators of Iraqi progress.

The original occupation of Iraq in April 2003 was expected to kick start a process of liberation, but an insurgency began to develop within days of the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime. The killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein and the ultimate capture of Saddam Hussein himself were acclaimed as symbols of progress by many decision-makers in Washington. But the insurgency went on, and political opposition to the post-Saddam authorities gained pace.² While the handover of power to the Allawi regime at the end of June 2004 was expected to undermine the Iraqi opposition, Iraqi resistance instead began to successfully target symbols of the new government, as well as the occupation, with great impunity.

The elections will take place under increasingly unfavorable conditions, primarily due to the foreign occupation and sectarian and ethnic polarization. But the most serious threat to the US-instigated political process comes from a highly sophisticated insurgency with a growing power base. Iraq’s intelligence chief, General Shahwani, estimates the total strength of the insurgency at around 40,000 active paramilitaries, backed by up to 160,000 active supporters willing to provide intelligence, shelter, and logistical support, and even occasionally engage in actual fighting.³ This contrasts with the United State’s October 2004 estimates of 5,000 to 20,000 full-time or part-time insurgents.⁴

Despite interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s constant assertions that postponing the polls will be construed as rewarding the insurgents, he was forced to admit that voting will be impossible in “pockets” of insurgent violence, and Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, the commander of US ground forces in Iraq, admitted earlier that conditions in four Iraqi provinces remain unfavorable for conducting elections.⁵ These admissions are borne out by the recent joint statement issued by the Ansar al-Sunnah Army, Al-Mujahidin Army, and the Iraqi Islamic Army groups, attacking the legitimacy of the elections, threatening anyone who participates, and declaring all polling centers targets.⁶

Additionally, repeated requests by Sunni and even some Kurdish leaders, including interim president Ghazi al-Yawer, for the postponement of the polls have made many observers skeptical of the validity of the elections and the legitimacy of their results.⁷

While the brutal US-led assault on Fallujah and elsewhere in the so-called Sunni triangle was intended to defeat the insurgents and to secure cities regarded as insurgent strongholds for voting, it only served to further alienate mainstream Iraqi Sunnis, who are growing increasingly bitter at the marginalization of their political representatives by the occupation forces.

With the continuing presence of occupation forces and the growing insurgency, Iraq’s upcoming elections are by no means intended to fairly address the problems of the Iraqis. Instead, they will be little more than an attempt by occupation authorities to provide an aura of credibility and legitimacy to a pro-US government amenable to a prolonged US presence in Iraq. Recent elections in Palestine and Afghanistan, tailored to support the election of pro-US candidates, are insightful examples of what is being planned for Iraq at the behest of the occupation authorities.

Flawed from the Start

The January 30 elections will be Iraq’s first direct multiparty elections since 1953. There were no legislative elections following the 1958 coup led by Abdul Karim Kassem until the Baa`th Party created a tightly controlled National Assembly in 1980.⁸ Currently, Iraqis participating in the upcoming elections will be confronted by a bewildering variety of groups and coalitions running for office. Given that Iraq has no recent democratic tradition, most of those coalitions or groups were formed only within the last year, and are not sufficiently familiar to Iraqi society. In addition, each voter will be handed a confusing ballot paper that has a list of 111 different options for which the voter can vote. The list involves 75 parties, 9 coalitions, and 27 individuals. Each ballot entry will include the party’s symbol, name, and a number. Voters will need to navigate through numerous entries on a list of more than 100 symbols.⁹

The confusing voting system will definitely favor those few parties that have long lists, are headed by well-known figures, or enjoy familiar names. Logically, many voters will choose the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (favored by Sistani), the Kurdish Alliance, Prime Minister Allawi’s secular Iraqi National Accord, and President al-Yawer’s Iraqis’ Party List. As a result, many legitimate independent candidates are likely to be excluded. The Sunni vote will also definitely be at a disadvantage, given that most Sunni groups have boycotted the elections and have no well-known figures or party lists running. Indeed, a State Department poll recently found that only 12% of the Sunnis believe the elections would be legitimate or fair.¹⁰

The Specter of Civil Conflict

Must of the candidates are unfamiliar to the average Iraqi

While the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq brought down the Saddam regime, it destroyed Iraqi institutions and dismantled all national sources of legitimacy and state sovereignty. Proponents of the post-Saddam order consistently label their opponents “terrorists,” “former Baa`thists,” or “Saddam loyalists,” while the opposition counters by suggesting that any official or institution affiliated with the new order is a “lackey of the occupation authorities,” a “hypocrite,” or an “agent of the Crusader-Zionist alliance.” The result of this domestic bickering has been the lack of any popularly-accepted source of legitimacy and the deconstruction of a unified Iraqi national identity, with increasingly powerful ethnic, sectarian, religious, or tribal affiliations.

Iraq’s Sunni Arabs, historically Iraq’s leading political community, have been deliberately marginalized by occupation authorities, who saw the Sunnis as the Saddam Hussein regime’s primary support base. The current state of affairs is a primary reason for the intense resistance to the occupation found in Sunni areas, as many Sunnis believe that the insurgency is their only means to influence Iraq’s political life.¹¹

But this marginalization also explains why the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the highest Sunni religious authority, chose to boycott the elections, and why the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), another major Sunni player, decided to boycott, although it had earlier been willing to participate in most post-Saddam transitional arrangements.

Despite its apparent unity, there are also deep divisions within the Shiite community that cannot be easily reconciled. In addition to struggles for leadership, Shiites are divided on issues related to methods of dealing with the Anglo-American occupation and the rejection or acceptance of Iranian influence in Iraq. For months, the Shiite community in Iraq was torn between the authority of the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who calls for peaceful resistance to the occupation, and Moqtada al-Sadr’s militant opposition. On April 14, 2003, an armed group affiliated with Moqtada al-Sadr surrounded al-Sistani’s home in Najaf and ordered him to leave the country because of his associations with Iran and because he is “not an Arab.”¹² Also, in August 2004, when the American military launched its offensive against al-Sadr’s militia in Najaf, al-Sistani left the city for the first time in years, ostensibly to receive medical treatment in London. He returned three weeks later, after al-Sadr’s militia had been severely weakened by the American military.

In contrast to Moqtada’s militancy, the Sistani-affiliated Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the Islamic Dawa Party in Iraq (IDPI) were spreading a message of patience, promising their followers an inevitable Shiite-dominated Iraqi government through elections. In mid-November 2004, to unify the Iraqi Shiite voice, a coalition of political forces committed to participating in the elections under Sistanti’s guidance was announced. The coalition, it was said, would include all major Shiite political movements, including that of al-Sadr. Consequently, the formation of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) was announced on December 7, 2004.

Surprisingly, while the coalition’s membership list was dominated by IDP and SCIRI candidates, none of al-Sadr’s followers were to be found.¹³ The official explanation was that the Sadrist movement was not included because it was not registered as a political party with Iraq’s electoral commission. However, Moqtada al-Sadr himself addressed the issue when he declared that his movement would not participate in the Iraqi elections if other religious leaders did not guarantee an immediate departure of foreign troops after the elections.¹⁴

The result of Moqtada’s position was a breakdown in negotiations between the Sadrist movement and the Sistani-led religious establishment, which suggests that a large segment of Iraq’s population will not be represented. For example, the millions who live in Sadr City—the predominantly Shiite Baghdad slum neighborhood—will be denied a voice.¹⁵ 

Iraq’s Kurds, who have been the most welcoming of the US presence in Iraq, have been calling for a delay of the elections, in what some analysts suggest is an attempt to further consolidate their autonomous government structures and military forces.¹⁶ The Kurds are concerned that their current US-sanctioned “autonomy” might be undermined if any future national government drafts a constitution that does not include the same guarantees enshrined in the prevailing US-sponsored “transitional administrative law.”¹⁷

Reaping the Whirlwind

Iraq is facing an unparalleled situation where occupying powers speak of “sovereignty” and a “transfer of power” while maintaining over 150,000 foreign troops on Iraqi soil. US decision makers fail to recognize that the continued presence of foreign troops is itself a major cause of instability in Iraq.

Almost two years after the removal of Saddam, Iraq is no closer to freedom or democracy. Occupation forces have done little to mollify Iraqi resentment, and have failed to create a political climate conducive to the rise of a stable Iraqi polity. Many Iraqis are disillusioned with participation in a political system created by the occupying forces. Ordinary Iraqis are in a situation were they have to choose between unfamiliar candidates while at the same they are denied their democratic right to vote in a referendum on whether or not they want an end to the presence of foreign troops in their country. Conducting elections in Iraq in such circumstances threatens to exacerbate already existing tensions between Iraq’s various ethnic and sectarian groups, and pave the way for massive civil conflict. This reality has prompted Iraq’s Interior Minister Falah Naqib to warn of a possible “civil war and the division of the country.”¹⁸  

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Related Links:

• The Tensions of Transition in Iraq

• A Stronger Empire, a Stronger Challenge

• The Dynamics of Al-Sadr’s Uprising