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Shiites, Kurds forge ahead
30.12.2005
By Jill Carroll
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The two groups met
without Sunnis Thursday to plan a ruling coalition.
BAGHDAD – Far from the violence of this
country's turbulent capital, the emerging Shiite and
Kurdish leaders of Iraq's new democracy hunkered
down in a northern mountain retreat to plan, they
say, a pluralistic government that would embrace
disenfranchised Sunni Arabs.
The stakes of such meetings are enormous. While
certainly the beginning of political horse-trading
that will stretch over the coming weeks, the
challenge will be to unite groups with widely
different views into one ruling coalition. A
consensus-based process could create a government
stabilized through the buy-in of all Iraqis.
But with Sunni Arab leaders left behind in Baghdad
questioning the legitimacy of the Dec. 15 vote, so
far the process has only marginalized these
political have-nots who, as the backbone of
insurgent support, hold the keys to ensuring
stability in Iraq.
Certainly Sunnis are part of negotiations, says
Mohammed Amin al-Delawe with a wave of his hand,
head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party for central
and southern Iraq. "Not only the Sunnis but all the
other lists that won. [Shiite and Kurdish parties
will work with them] without looking at the number
of seats each has. Everyone should take part in the
government and that will close the hole that the
terrorists come in through."
But as he spoke, Sunnis were not in northern Iraq
getting to know their fellow Council of
Representatives members, but instead were focused on
negotiations with the Independent Electoral
Commission of Iraq (IECI). More than 1,500 formal
complaints have been issued with the IECI, which
oversees the elections. Sunnis are lobbying hard for
investigations into reports of voting
irregularities.
On Wednesday, the United Nations endorsed the Dec.
15 vote, saying that the results were credible.
Sunnis insist vote was unfair
"We believe it's too early to be talking about
forming the government. We should turn the page of
the elections and then talk about forming the
government," says Salim al-Jabouri, a member of the
Iraqi Islamic Party, one of three main groups that
made up the leading Sunni list of candidates. "We
believe that there is an unfairness committed
against us during and before the elections. A lot of
seats were taken from us, from the [provinces] that
represent us, and given to other [provinces]."
Unlike last January's election for an interim
government where the total number of votes
nationwide determined how many seats each list of
candidates won, this time around seats in the
Council of Representatives were allocated by
province. That gives some assurance to the various
ethnic groups that they will get representation in
the new parliament since Iraq's regions are roughly
analogous to religious and ethnic groupings.
The view from the winners' side, however, is quite
different.
"Some of these groups complain or do activities
against the whole process because they got fewer
votes than expected," says Mr. Delawe of the
Kurdistan Democratic Party. "There was some kinds of
cheating but not that much."
Underlying the sharp divisions among Iraq's ethnic
and religious groups is the history of a country
that never decided on its own to be one nation.
Modern Iraq was essentially a frontier between the
Ottoman and Persian Empires until early last
century. Shiites, Sunnis, and ethnically separate
Kurds made their homes on the same land but did not
consider themselves part of a single country. That
was created by British forces that occupied the
country after World War I and, like the US today,
tried to establish a national parliament and
national government amid much fighting between Sunni
and Shiites. Those efforts, including Shiite
boycotts of elections and participation in the
government, laid the groundwork for the Sunni
domination during Saddam Hussein's regime.
Debate will focus on Constitution
Today the roles are reversed. Jawad al-Maliki, a
member of the leading Shiite coalition who heads a
committee for negotiating with the Kurds, says
Shiites aren't the ones who can appease Sunni anger
over the vote.
"The Sunnis talk about violations or forgeries that
happened in their provinces. The United Nations and
the election courts and election commission, they
are responsible for dealing with the situation, not
us," he says. But at the same time, "We want
everyone to participate and not to push anyone out
of the process. We want everyone to enter the
circle."
But a key provision in the Constitution will make
any circle of inclusion a difficult one to draw.
Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Shiite
candidates that will hold the majority in the
parliament, made clear in a press conference this
week that a constitutional provision that would
allow Shiites to create their own semi-autonomous
region in oil-rich southern Iraq is sacred and
unlikely to be altered despite Sunni objections.
"The first priority is of course changing the
Constitution," says Jabouri from the leading Sunni
list. "We will have two choices. First, being a part
of the new government or the other option is forming
an opposition front inside the parliament and all
the options are inside the political process."
But average Sunnis like Jassem Mohammed, already
feel slighted by the political process. He sees only
one option if the Shiite and Kurdish parties don't
give Sunnis a meaningful role in governing the
country. "We will have nothing left to do, only
fighting," says Mohammed, a former army leader under
Mr. Hussein.
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