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I think the main objective of the Kurds is
to say, 'we are a special case'
14.12.2005
By Valentinas Mite "Voting Begins In Key Parliamentary
Elections"
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Iraqi expatriates have
already started voting in parliamentary polls that
many see as a watershed event. Altogether, an
estimated 4 million voters will take part in
elections tomorrow to select 275 members to a new
National Assembly. That body, in turn, will elect a
prime minister and president. More than 200
political parties and some 7,000 candidates are in
the running. Observers hope that turnout will be
high and violence does not disrupt the vote -- the
third time this year Iraqis have been called to cast
ballots.
Prague, 14 December 2005 (RFE/RL) -- The
elections are seen as yet another milestone in the
political process of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
For the first time since Hussein’s ouster in 2003,
Iraqis are set to elect not a provisional body, but
a parliament with an extended mandate.
"We are talking about a four-year government and
people take it more seriously now comparing to the
other elections," Mustafa Alani, a regional expert
at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, told RFE/RL.
"They want to take it really more seriously because
this will determine the fate of the country and the
Iraqi society for the forthcoming years. So the
value of these elections is that it will have a huge
impact on the future of Iraq."
Iraq’s political landscape, poisoned by sectarianism
and violence, is a complex one. The biggest and most
influential group is Shi'ite Arabs. Marginalized
under Hussein, the Shi'a have dominated the
government elected in January in their first taste
of power in modern history.
Alani told RFE/RL that the top Shi'ite spiritual
leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has
encouraged Shi'a to vote but has not backed a
specific party.
The main Shi'ite political grouping is the United
Iraqi Alliance. It brings together mostly religious
parties, including the Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the Al-Da'wah
Party, and the Sadrist movement of Muqtada al-Sadr.
Meanwhile, the Sunni Arab minority, Iraq’s longtime
rulers, is not boycotting the elections, as it did
at the beginning of this year. Alani said that Sunni
political parties have understood that they will
gain more by participation than by boycott. He said
they might perform well, as they have reached a kind
of understanding with moderate Iraqi resistance
groups.
"I think the Sunnis now, especially [those] in the
parties within the Arab Sunni camp, reached some
sort of apparent understanding with the Iraqi
resistance movement. Not with [Al-Qaeda leader in
Iraq Mus'ab] al-Zarqawi, not with Arab mujahedin,
but with the Iraqi part of the armed groups that
those people are going to support the political
process. I think this is major shift in Arab Sunni
diplomacy. I think the Arab Sunnis’ participation
will be major."
A recent website statement, purportedly by Al-Qaeda
in Iraq and four other groups, branded the elections
a "devilish plot" and participating in them as
"anti-Islamic."
But many Sunni Arabs see their boycott of January’s
elections as a mistake. Those polls only increased
Shi'ite dominance in parliament -- something that
Sunni Arabs hope to avoid or at least diminish by
participating in tomorrow’s voting.
Iraqi Kurds, meanwhile, are hoping the elections can
help them preserve their autonomy. "Their aim is to
participate in the political process and to secure
semi-independent entity," Alani said. "And I think
the main objective of the Kurds is to say, 'we are a
special case.’"
The Kurdish alliance brings together the two main
factions, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), in a
coalition called the Kurdistan Coalition List It is
likely to sweep the Kurdish vote.
The major issue surrounding the elections is
security. In the latest development yesterday, a
leading Sunni Arab candidate, Mizhar al-Dulaymi, was
shot while campaigning in Al-Ramadi, the capital of
the restive western Al-Anbar Governorate. Dulaymi
headed the independent Free Progressive Party.
Security problems should not disrupt the voting,
especially when Sunnis are participating, according
to David Hartwell, who follows the Middle East for
the London-based organization Jane's Information
Group. "You have increased Sunni participation just
as you had [last October] in the referendum on the
constitution," he told RFE/RL. "There seems to be a
sort of fairly good air of optimism that there will
be a good turnout and the violence will probably
occur but maybe not on the scale that was
anticipated certainly before the referendum when
violence was predicted but it didn't happen."
Nonetheless, security is tight. Iraq's borders are
closed and a five-day public holiday began today as
a security measure for the election period. Both
Iraqi and coalition forces are on alert.
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