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Getting rid of the Iraqi dictatorship was the easy
part. Installing a working democracy in its place is
proving somewhat more difficult and complicated.
Iraq's newly elected National Assembly failed yet
again Tuesday to accomplish a modest task, one that
should have been completed several weeks ago: decide
on a speaker for the new Parliament, approve a new
president, two vice presidents and a prime minister.
By all accounts this would be a tall order in a
full-fledged democracy, let alone in one just
starting out.
In Iraq, where the experiment in democracy is still
very much in its infancy and where sectarian
divisions play a major role, it may take a tad
longer to sink in.
For example, Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader
expected to be named president Tuesday, did not show
up for the assembly session. Instead, the assembly
members, the first democratically elected since the
downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime, erupted into a
rowdy protest. Perhaps feeling somewhat
self-conscious, the parliamentarians opted to evict
the press and complete the session behind closed
doors.
In a somewhat confusing outburst from the floor,
deputies from opposing factions tried to make
themselves heard over opposition shouts. The live TV
broadcast of the session suddenly went off the air,
and security officials asked reporters and cameramen
to evacuate the hall.
Iraqis have eagerly anticipated appointment of a new
speaker and other officials since the Jan. 31
election of the 275-member House. That election in
turn should have facilitated formation of a
transitional national government, allowing it to
begin drafting a new Iraqi constitution. But now, by
all optimistic estimates, Iraqis foresee no positive
development in the country's political stagnation
before next year.
These delays anger the average Iraqi, for whom
political setback translates into continued
hardships. For the average Iraqi, it means continued
electricity cuts, continued water shortages,
continued gas station queues -- ironic in a country
with the world's second-largest oil reserves --
continued rampant street crime and, most
frustrating, continued occupation by U.S. and other
foreign military forces.
At the same time, Iraqis continue to live amid
insecurity with insurgents kidnapping and killing
not only foreigners but increasingly targeting Iraqi
security forces and recruits. Last week, three
Romanian journalists were kidnapped near their
Baghdad hotel, and a car bomb exploded in the
northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing one person
and wounding more than 12.
"We're very disappointed," Hathem Hassan Thani, 31,
a political science graduate student at Baghdad
University, told United Press International
correspondent Beth Potter in Baghdad. The trouble
boils down to the question of power-sharing between
the country's Sunnis, a long-dominant minority in
Iraq, and Shi'ites and Kurds. The Sunnis, who for
the most part boycotted the January elections, now
want to get a foot inside the political game of
rebuilding Iraq.
The Shi'ites, who represent about 60 percent to 65
percent of the country's 25 million people, won the
majority of the vote last January. The United Iraqi
Alliance led by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani, the
leading religious Shi'ite figure in Iraq, received
nearly 50 percent of the vote. The Kurds, who live
mainly in the northern part of the country, took 27
percent. And the Sunnis, who largely avoided the
ballot box partly in protest, partly from of
threatened terrorist retribution if they voted, now
say they wish to take part in drafting the new
constitution.
As Miss Potter reported Tuesday, "Deep divides
appeared between the assembly's Shi'ite, Sunni and
Kurdish members even before the session started."
The Shi'ites are blaming the Kurds and current
interim President Ghazi al-Yawar for holding up
progress of forming a government.
"The Iraqi people are very itchy. The street is very
nervous," said Saad Jawar Qindeel, a spokesman for
the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
one of two dominant religious-based parties that won
the United Iraqi Alliance ticket. "There's a lot of
talk of people ready to protest," he told Miss
Potter.
With the insurgency still trying to undermine Iraq's
slow crawl toward democracy, street protests would
invite more trouble and potential violence that
would further widen Iraqi political divisions. Those
are the dangers Iraq faces as it adapts to the
realities of a working democratic system.
Behind political shenanigans and vying for key
Cabinet posts such as oil, defense and the interior
-- is not only the matter of who wields real power
in Iraq but who controls the money.
As Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the
worst form of government, except for all those
others that have been tried." Iraqis, who have yet
to try democracy, will give it another chance
Sunday, when the Parliament reconvenes.
Claude Salhani is international editor for United
Press International.
www.washingtontimes.com
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