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Q&A: Iraq: What happens now in Iraq?
23.12.2005
By LIONEL BEEHNER
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Introduction
Lionel Beehner is a staff writer for the Council on
Foreign Relations website, www.cfr.org.
The December 15 elections in Iraq for a four-year,
275-member parliament were a resounding success, say
Iraq's leaders. Voter turnout, particularly among
Sunnis, was high by Iraqi standards. Early estimates
show that more than 10 million Iraqis--or some 70
percent of the registered voters--cast ballots last
Thursday. Violence was also relatively low,
notwithstanding a few explosions in central Baghdad.
And accusations of voter fraud and other abuses have
been minimal. In a series of speeches, President
George W. Bush called the elections "a major step
forward," but admitted they are not a cure-all for
Iraq's ongoing violence.
What is the timeline for forming Iraq's
government?
Iraqi officials predict the ballot-counting will
take around two weeks. The new government is
supposed to assume office by December 31, but
Richard Lugar (R-IN), chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, warned last week that Iraq's
government might not be up and running for at least
four months. According to Nathan Brown, senior
associate at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the parliament has fifteen days
to convene once the results are certified by the
Independent Electoral Commission for Iraq (IECI).
What is the process for picking Iraq's top
government positions?
Once in power, the parliament's first order of
business is to select a president and prime
minister. This requires selecting a so-called
presidential council, comprising a president and two
vice presidents, which must be approved by a
two-thirds majority in parliament. Experts say the
presidential council will likely be made up of a
Kurdish president and two vice presidents, one
Shiite and one Sunni Arab. The presidential council
then selects a prime minister, ostensibly the leader
of the largest bloc represented in parliament, who
must then win parliamentary approval. Experts say
the prime ministerial post will likely go to a
Shiite, while the speaker of the parliament will be
a Sunni. The prime minister, once approved, has
thirty days to nominate a cabinet, which comprises
approximately thirty ministerial portfolios and
includes the two deputy prime ministerial posts. The
cabinet, whose makeup will not necessarily reflect
the ethnic breakdown of parliament, must be approved
by a simple majority.
Which political faction fared best in the
elections?
Results are not finalized. But with roughly 89
percent of the ballots tallied in Baghdad province,
the biggest of Iraq's eighteen governorates, Iraqi
officials say the main Shiite bloc, the
clergy-backed United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), has won
roughly 58 percent of the votes. The UIA is a
collection of mostly conservative Islamist
parties--some with alleged ties to Iran--that favors
strictly enforcing the new Iraqi constitution,
strengthening Iraq's regional governments, and
prosecuting ex-Baathist criminals. Experts predict
the political coalition will take at least 120
seats--it currently holds 140 seats in
parliament--allowing the alliance to pick the prime
minister. The alliance's main party, the Supreme
Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), has
said it would not support the nomination of current
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose tenure has
been criticized by Shiite clerics. The early
frontrunner, experts say, is Adel Abdul Mahdi,
Iraq's interim finance minister and a high-ranking
SCIRI member.
There have been some complaints of voter
irregularities, by both Sunni and Shiite leaders,
most of them leveled against the UIA.
How did the Kurdish bloc do?
Preliminary results suggest the Kurdistan Coalition
List dominated the three northern provinces, as
expected, though its overall representation in
parliament--roughly a quarter in the interim
government--is likely to shrink because of the surge
in Sunni voting. The bloc, which consists of the
Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan (PUK), looks likely to win around
fifty-five seats in the new parliament. Its splinter
group, the Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU), will
probably take five seats. The KIU recently broke
from the alliance over accusations the main Kurdish
parties wielded too much power in Kurdistan's
politics. Both blocs, however, say they will vote in
unison on major Kurdish issues like federalism and
the status of Kirkuk, an oil-rich city. It looks
likely that the position of president, a largely
ceremonial post, will go to a Kurd. Some say Jalal
Talabani, Iraq's current president, may retain his
title, though recent press reports suggest he wants
more political power. "There is a bit of debate
going on because Talabani is not just a figurehead,"
says Howar Ziad, Iraq's ambassador to Canada. "He is
a national figure and believes the president has a
meaningful contribution to make."
How did Sunnis fare?
One of the biggest surprises of these elections,
experts say, is the high turnout of Sunni Arabs, who
comprise at least 20 percent of Iraq's population
and largely boycotted the interim elections last
January. Even in Ramadi, a Sunni insurgency
stronghold, turnout reportedly eclipsed 75 percent;
in Fallujah, the turnout was as high as 95 percent.
Experts expect Sunnis to win at least fifty to
fifty-five seats in parliament. The main Sunni
political bloc, the Iraqi Accordance Front, has
three main goals: expelling U.S. forces from Iraq,
ending de-Baathification, and amending the
constitution, which the group's spokesperson, Zafir
al-Ani, recently called a "readymade recipe for
civil war."
Which parties fared worst?
So far, it appears the political bloc of interim
Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Chalabi, the National
Congress Coalition, has fared much worse than
expected. Preliminary results in Baghdad seem to
indicate that Chalabi's political bloc--a loose
collection of mostly liberal, secular, and Shiite
parties that defected from the UIA--won less than 1
percent of the vote. Other secular Shiite coalitions
fared only slightly better. The Iraqi National List,
led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, will
probably only win between twenty and twenty-five
seats. His coalition won just forty seats in the
transitional assembly.
The political bloc of interim Deputy Prime Minister
Ahmed Chalabi, the National Congress Coalition, has
fared much worse than expected.
How much behind-the-scenes jockeying is expected
by political players?
Lots, experts say, particularly given that UIA does
not look likely to win a majority of the seats.
Because the cabinet's executive officers require
two-thirds parliamentary approval, many of the main
political leaders will need to set aside ethnic and
ideological differences to make political deals and
form coalitions. Some experts predict radical shifts
in alliance formations. For example, the UIA, which
needs around ten more seats for a majority, is
reportedly already reaching out to members of
Allawi's Iraqi National List and the Sunni-led Iraqi
Accord Front to forge a political partnership.
Allawi's group, which includes a number of ex-Baathists
and shares several common interests with the main
Sunni groups--among them ending the de-Baathification
process and pushing for a strong central
government--may link up with the main Sunni bloc.
Another scenario, though highly improbable, is a
so-called national-unity government comprising
leaders of all the major political blocs. Others
predict that the secularist Shiite parties, which
have a long history of political feuding, may
partner up with the Kurdish coalition to prevent
Iraq's leadership from becoming too Islamist. Such
behind-the-scenes negotiations are likely to last
for several weeks, if not months, until a new
government is formed.
What is the process for amending the
constitution?
By April, Iraq's parliament is expected to put forth
a series of reforms to the country's constitution.
But significantly altering the document, a primary
goal for most Sunni politicians, is a complex
process, Brown says. Parliament must first form a
committee, which then proposes a package of
amendments. Next, the parliament votes on the
amendments as a package, not individually, and this
requires a simple majority. If passed, the bloc of
amendments must then win approval from the public in
a nationwide referendum, similar to the one held on
the constitution October 15. "[The system's]
structured so that the constitution will not develop
significant changes," Brown says.
What about investigating instances of voter
fraud?
There have been some complaints of voter
irregularities, by both Sunni and Shiite leaders,
most of them leveled against the UIA. Some 692
formal complaints have been filed to the IECI,
according to the New York Times. Moqtada al-Sadr, a
radical Shiite cleric, has called for an independent
commission to be formed to recount the ballots.
Saleh al-Mutlaq, a prominent Sunni leader, claims
there was voter obstruction in several polling
stations in Sunni areas. And two days before the
December 15 elections, Iraqi border police seized an
Iranian tanker reportedly filled with thousands of
forged ballots. A spokesperson for the IECI told the
Christian Science Monitor that voter irregularities
would be investigated by the electoral commission
but that no re-votes would be held.
www.nytimes.com
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