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SULAYMANIYA, Iraq
— In this Kurdish mountain capital, pictures of
candidates appear in newspapers. Election day
celebrations are being planned. The biggest worry is
whether bad weather on Jan. 30 might clog the roads.
(A fleet of snow-blowers has been readied just in
case.)
It's all in stark contrast to the rest of the
country, where the political hopefuls are afraid to
be identified, campaigning is underground and
millions of voters are expected to steer clear of
the polls in protest or in fear.
"There's a sense of gathering excitement among the
Kurds over elections," said Barham Salih, Iraq's
deputy prime minister for national security and one
of the highest-ranking Kurds in the current
government. "Our aspirations are very high. It's an
exciting moment in our history. This is the first
time we Kurds have been allowed to take part in
deciding the future of Iraq."
Political experts predict that Kurds will emerge as
major winners on election day thanks to a
combination of factors working in their favor,
including strong voter turnout because of better
security in their region and a unified candidate
slate that removed any threat of a split vote. Kurds
may not get the most votes, but they are likely to
win a sizable bloc that should give them a key role
in selecting the new government.
"The Kurds are really the ones who could come out on
top," said Hassan Bazaz, a political analyst at
Baghdad University.
Such strong prospects mark a stunning turnaround
from the recent history of the Kurds, who were
brutally oppressed under the previous regime.
Fearful that Kurds might break away from Iraq and
suspicious of their ties with the U.S. and Iran,
Saddam Hussein embarked on a devastating campaign of
genocide and deportation that is now a focus of a
war crimes tribunal against the former Iraqi
president. Protected by a "no-fly" zone imposed by
the United Nations in the early 1990s, the Kurds
gained semi-autonomy.
Now Kurds are preparing to play a major role in
Baghdad. At political offices here, officials and
strategists are making optimistic
back-of-the-envelope calculations. The only dispute
seems to be exactly how well they will do.
Nearly everyone here in Iraq's Kurdish north expects
that they will garner at least the second-highest
number of seats in the new parliament, perhaps 65 to
70 of the total 275 seats, or about 25% of the
transitional national assembly. Kurds account for
15% to 20% of Iraq's population.
"We expect to do quite well," said Imad Ahmed, the
deputy prime minister of Sulaymaniya province.
One of the leading Shiite slates is expected to
capture the No. 1 spot, but the Shiite vote could
split between the United Iraqi Alliance, which is
backed by the main Shiite Muslim religious parties,
and the Iraqi List, a secular alternative led by
interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Low turnout in the rest of the country because of
violence could also result in a better performance
for Kurdish candidates.
Either way, the Kurds should be in a strong position
to help select the next prime minister, draft the
constitution and settle such hotly disputed issues
as who will control the oil-rich northern city of
Kirkuk.
Other political parties in Iraq are already courting
the Kurds, whose potential parliamentary bloc will
play a vital role in forming a coalition to govern.
Under the Transitional Administrative Law, major
decisions by the new government will need the
approval of two-thirds of the assembly. The Kurds
are well-positioned not only because they may be
among the largest blocs but because their slate is
likely to be one of the most cohesive.
"The Kurds will be the kingmaker," said Adnan
Pachachi, a former foreign minister and a leading
Sunni Arab politician who heads his own slate of
candidates.
A leading Shiite slate is mindful that the Kurds are
likely to be critical partners.
"We need the Kurds," said Saad Jawad, head of the
political bureau of the Supreme Council for Islamic
Revolution in Iraq. "We won't need help getting a
simple majority of 50%. We think we can get that
alone. But we will need them to get to the
two-thirds majority, which is more important."
Preliminary talks have taken place, but Shiites and
Kurds are waiting to see how they do Jan. 30 and how
much support they each bring to the table.
Kurds are angling for one of the top two positions
in the new government, either prime minister or
president. In June, Kurds were bitterly disappointed
that they failed to nab either post when the U.S.
handed over sovereignty.
"It's important for us to have one of the top two
spots, and we think we can take one," said Ahmed,
the Sulaymaniya official. Jalal Talabani, the leader
of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, is
being pushed for one of the posts.
Rivals, however, warn that the Kurds could face a
backlash if they push too hard for a leadership
position or capture a disproportionate number of
assembly seats. Tensions and suspicions between
Iraq's Kurds and Arabs date back 100 years.
"It would give a distorted picture of the reality of
Iraq," Pachachi said. "Already Sunni Arabs feel they
have been marginalized and not treated fairly. If
they were left with nothing — neither the president
nor the prime minister — this would just make things
even worse. People feel that Iraq, after all, is a
predominantly Arab country."
Salih, Iraqi deputy prime minister and a PUK leader,
said the jostling over leadership posts would serve
as a test of whether Kurds were considered
full-fledged Iraqis or "second-class citizens."
"If a Kurd — just for being a Kurd — cannot get a
top position, that is tantamount to discrimination,"
he said. "Either we are full-fledged citizens or
not."
Kurds note that they have a history of strong voter
turnout and more experience than other Iraqis with
democratic elections thanks to their semi-autonomous
status over the past decade. Kurds are expecting at
least a 90% turnout on election day.
In addition to the backup snow-blowers, Kurdish
parties are organizing buses to ferry voters to the
polls and printing fliers and posters to direct
residents to polling places, said Hiwa Jaff, a PUK
campaign official.
To achieve a unified slate and improve their chances
Jan. 30, the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
or KDP, set aside a rivalry that has at times led to
bloodshed. Disputes over a 1992 election in
Kurdistan ended in a regional civil war.
But under a deal reached last month, the two main
parties and nearly every other political
organization in Kurdistan joined forces on a single
slate.
"We wanted to show voters that we can put aside our
differences for the common good of Kurds in Iraq,"
said Ari Qaradaghi, a campaign official for the KDP.
Even at the local level, Kurdish parties joined
together on a signal slate for the Kurdistan
Regional Parliament and for local councils. The move
virtually eliminated competition among Kurdish
parties.
Kurdish leaders said they feared that even a local
contest between the Kurdish parties would distract
from the more important national elections and
possibly lead to tensions that could disrupt the
vote.
"We agreed to do this one time only," said Bahiz
Hussein of the Kurdistan Community Party. "For the
sake of our future, we didn't want our people to be
divided by competition."
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