|
Iraq votes for a third time
17.12.2005
|
|
|
|
Iraq's Election Day was
a glorious success. Now on to the hard part.
Compared with any previous Iraqi election, with any
reasonable expectation and with any other recent
election in the Arab Middle East, Thursday's vote
for a new Iraqi Parliament was an overwhelming and
heartening triumph.
Voter turnout was high in Sunni Arab areas as well
as in Shiite and Kurdish districts. Violence was
down - not just lower than it was for this year's
two previous elections, but lower than on an average
day in post-invasion Iraq. While some irregularities
were reported (who would have believed a claim of
100 percent perfection?), at this point the problems
look too few to cast doubt on the overall results.
This page has consistently stressed the importance
of the widest possible Sunni Arab participation in
the politics of a new Iraq. Now Sunni voters, keenly
feeling the cost of their past election boycotts and
less intimidated by insurgent violence, have joined
the political process and strengthened their
representation in the new Parliament.
That step will not be enough in itself to drain the
insurgency and ensure an inclusive, pluralist Iraq.
That can happen only if the new government to be
chosen by this Parliament includes representative
Sunnis in some of the more sensitive cabinet posts,
dealing with security, energy and finances, and if
Shiite and Kurdish political leaders keep their word
and agree to a radical revision of the present
divisive and punitive Constitution.
It is likely to be days, perhaps weeks, before all
the votes are counted and the precise shape of the
new Parliament is known. One crucial question will
be how the majority Shiites have divided their votes
between the Iranian-backed religious parties, which
are now dominant, and their more secular and
nationalist competitors.
It will then be up to the leading Shiite parties to
make alliances with Kurdish, Sunni and pan-Iraqi
groups to form a working parliamentary majority. The
best result would be a broad but coherent alliance.
A central government that was weak and paralyzed
would be in nobody's interests.
Besides forming a government, the new Parliament is
pledged to choose a committee to rewrite the
brand-new but fatally flawed Constitution, which was
drafted only this summer and ratified in a
referendum just two months ago. As it now stands,
the Constitution is an open invitation for a breakup
of Iraq and for years of bloody civil and regional
war.
Under sharp prodding from Washington, the Shiite and
Kurdish politicians who came up with this disastrous
document agreed that it could be quickly revised
after the parliamentary election. At a minimum, the
committee needs to create a much stronger central
government, to allocate oil revenues fairly to all
regions, and to protect civil rights and women's
rights from clerical encroachment.
The questions of security and policing are as
important as the political and constitutional
issues. The first responsibility of any government
is to ensure the safety of its citizens without
violating their legal and human rights in the
process. This has been the biggest failure of all
modern Iraqi governments, before and after the
American invasion.
Despite the optimistic tone of the Bush
administration's speeches, it is painfully clear
that Iraqi security forces, as they now stand, lack
the political credibility and military skills to
defeat the raging insurgency. The police and Army
ranks are swelled with party and sectarian militia
members who have shown no particular loyalty to the
wider Iraqi nation and little if any respect for the
legal and human rights of the people they arrest and
abuse.
One of the new government's biggest challenges will
be to establish security forces that are more
professional, law-abiding, and religiously and
ethnically diverse. If it fails to do that, the new
Parliament in which Iraqis are now investing so much
hope may turn into an irrelevant sideshow.
The faith and courage of Iraq's voters produced a
successful Election Day. To create a functioning,
stable and democratic Iraq, Iraqis must now depend
on their elected politicians' vision, statesmanship
and willingness to compromise.
www.nytimes.com
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
® 