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In Iraq, A push for unity on vote U.S.
Ambassador meets with president Massoud Barzani
25.12.2005
By Jonathan Finer
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BAGHDAD, Dec. 24
- After angry street protests and charges of
vote-rigging in last week's elections heightened
tensions in an already divided Iraq, U.S. officials
and leaders of the country's main factions are
negotiating the formation of a government that would
represent all groups in hopes of heading off further
fragmentation and a possible surge of violence.
Each of the country's three largest communities --
Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds -- voted
overwhelmingly on Dec. 15 for lists of parliamentary
candidates that represented its own group. According
to preliminary, unofficial ballot counts, the
largest share of votes was won by the alliance of
Shiite Muslim religious parties that leads Iraq's
outgoing government. Minority Sunni Arabs,
meanwhile, appeared to have won fewer votes than
they had anticipated.
That voting pattern, and the subsequent unrest and
charges of fraud by Sunnis, exacerbated
long-standing fears and distrust that had emerged
since the fall of Saddam Hussein almost three years
ago, Iraqi officials and Western diplomats said. In
recent weeks, Shiite and Sunni leaders have called
for the formation of sectarian armies to police
their respective regions, a step some observers say
could be a precursor to open clashes between the
groups. The Kurds, who dominate most of Kurdistan
(northern Iraq), already have their own fighting
force, as do several Shiite parties.
"Every group here is afraid of every other group:
The Sunnis are afraid, the Shiites are afraid, and
the Kurds are afraid," said a Western diplomat in
Baghdad who agreed to be interviewed on the
condition he not be named. "And the response to that
has been to sort of draw together as a kind of
self-preservation tactic. When it came down to it,
people voted on the basis of identity, and now it is
time to walk everybody back and choose a government
that represents the country. This is a critical
time."
Iraq's largest Sunni parties, together with the
secular Shiite leader and former interim prime
minister Ayad Allawi, have denounced the elections
as fixed and threatened to boycott the next
parliament if the vote is not rerun. In a
demonstration Friday by more than 10,000 Iraqis,
protesters held banners that vowed to "extinguish
the candle" -- a reference to the symbol employed by
the Shiite parties during the campaign. |
Photo: U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, right,
meets with Kurdish regional president Massoud
Barzani in Irbil, Kurdistan (northern Iraq) . The
Kurds are one of three main groups negotiating the
formation of a representative new government. (By
Azad Lashkari -- Reuters) |
In response, leaders of top Shiite religious parties
such as the Supreme Council for the Islamic
Revolution in Iraq said Saturday that Iraqi law
precluded repeating the elections. "What is
happening in the streets is led by gangs of the
former regime insurgents who don't want to fix the
results" but want to "disrupt the political
process," Jawad Maliki, a senior member of the
Supreme Council, said at a news conference in
Baghdad.
Despite the public standoff, factional leaders are
engaged in behind-the-scenes negotiations. Maliki
acknowledged in Saturday's news conference that Iraq
could not move forward without factional unity and
that negotiations had "started already between us
and the slates that won in the elections, away from
the voices we hear in the street."
"The next government will have a full term of four
years, which requires that we have agreement on how
to positively run the government and the state,"
said Alaa Makki, a senior member of the Iraqi
Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political
organization. "We don't want to end up with a
government similar to the current one."
The Sunnis, who account for about 20 percent of
Iraq's population, controlled the government under
Hussein. Since his ouster, they have struggled to
come to terms with their diminished power, though
their strategy has shifted from boycotting the
January elections -- which left them powerless in
parliament -- to turning out in force to vote last
week. U.S. officials have long maintained that the
inclusion of Sunnis, who are thought to make up the
bulk of the insurgency, is critical to stemming the
violence.
"The challenges ahead are real," Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said during a visit to Iraq this
week. "The task of fashioning a government as
described, a government of national unity that
governs from the center, that has the confidence and
the capability to lead this country during a
challenging period, is a considerable task."
On Saturday, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most
influential Shiite cleric in Iraq, with unparalleled
influence over Shiite politicians, was said to have
called for a government that would help maintain
unity.
After a meeting with Sistani, who rarely speaks
publicly on politics, the national security adviser,
Mowaffak Rubaie, said the cleric "appealed to all
sides to remain calm." Sistani also said it was
critical for "the winner in the elections to work
with the rest of the Iraqi groups to form a national
unity government," Rubaie related.
Iraq's Shiite parties represent about 60 percent of
the population and are estimated to have won at
least 120 of 275 seats in the new parliament. With
the largest share of seats, they will have the first
opportunity to form a new government. But lacking
the two-thirds majority required for approval of a
prime minister, they are seeking to build a
coalition -- similar to the current administration,
which comprises mainly Shiites and Kurds -- to line
up behind their top candidates for prime minister:
the Supreme Council's Adel Abdul Mahdi and the
incumbent, Ibrahim Jafari of the Dawa party.
Before that process can begin, Iraq's election
commission must complete its investigation of about
1,500 reports of improprieties related to the vote,
including dozens deemed serious enough to
potentially change the outcome. More than 400
complaints have already been reviewed and found
without merit, the commission head, Adil Lami, said
Saturday. The commission is expected to finish its
work by early January.
At an office in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone on
Saturday, elections experts from the United Nations
and other international organizations joined their
Iraqi counterparts in poring over boxes full of
ballots from polling stations in the capital where
complaints were received. Party workers and other
monitors watched the process from behind a glass
divider.
Beyond Baghdad, concern about the outcome of the
election is mounting in Iraq's Shiite-populated
south and Sunni-dominated west. The country's ethnic
Kurds already enjoy relative autonomy in three
northern provinces (Kurdistan), though they are
widely expected to make a push for further
independence.
In Najaf, the holy city that some Shiites want at
the heart of a southern federal region, residents
said Sunnis' concerns over fraud were unfounded.
"The elections were very honest, and we are
surprised that some politicians reject the results,"
said Fadhil Muhammed Ridha, 33, a religious student.
"They only say that fraud happened in the places
where they lost."
But in Fallujah, the city west of Baghdad where U.S.
forces conducted a major offensive against Sunni
insurgents last year, some residents said they were
already losing faith in the political process. Few
voted in January, but turnout in Fallujah was more
than 90 percent last week.
"People said politics is not fair, so we didn't vote
in the first election. Now we voted in this
election, and they change the results," said Fawzi
Muhammed, an engineer who is chairman of Fallujah's
reconstruction committee. "It is not good, because
people here, if they think this government took
their rights, they will fight."
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