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With the Iraqi
Electoral Commission announcement Monday that 99
percent of the ballots in the December 15 national
election are valid, it appears the results will
remain basically unchanged. The Commission's verdict
on the election came after several groups protested
that the biggest winner in the vote, the Shiite
Islamist United Iraqi Alliance, had rigged many
votes at the expense of Sunni Arab and secular
parties. Although the official election results have
not yet been announced, the bargaining for power in
the new government has already begun among the
various coalitions.
Many Iraqis are impatient at the all-but-paralyzed
political process, as the newly elected government
waits in the wings for an international election
inspection team to validate the December 15 election
results.
The impatience was evident at the Khademeyah shrine
in Baghdad last Friday, where Shiite Imam Hazzam Al
Araji railed against American Forces and the lack of
security in Iraq.
"Now the Iraqi society lives in a critical time," he
said. "Now you can see Baathists, Saddamists,
Zarqawists, they're represented in this time. Now
from our religious scholar we didn't see any
movement, any signal. We need movement. There is no
movement."
Al Araji was referring to the silence of Iraq's most
respected Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatolla Ali Al
Sistani, and his continued urging that Shiites not
retaliate against Sunni Arabs in the face of attacks
on the Shiite population.
An official announcement of the election results is
expected later this month. But the results are not
expected to diverge wildly from the preliminary
results, and the back-room horse-trading has already
begun for positions in the new government.
"Now we are passing a very important time for Iraq,
as we are working toward forming the permanent
government," said Shiite Political Analyst and
former politician Ali al Dabagh.
He says the new, four-year government will have the
ability to either unify Iraq's diverse communities
or lead them to more division and civil war. The
government will be the first permanent elected body
to rule the country since the American led invasion
in 2003.
The Shiite coalition of 16 parties, known as the UIA,
won a little less than half the seats in an assembly
where the new government's prime minister and other
positions will need a two thirds majority to be
approved. This means the UIA will have to bargain
with the Sunni Arab parties, which won around 20
percent of the vote, and the Kurdish bloc, which won
the other 20 percent.
The current president, Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is
expected to remain in his position, but under
condition that he gets more power in the largely
symbolic position. The other two most powerful
positions in the government are the Speaker of
Parliament, currently a Sunni, and the Prime
Minister, a Shiite.
Two Shiite UIA members are jockeying for prime
minster, the current Prime Minister, Ibrahim Jaafari,
and Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi. Dabagh says
whoever is selected could determine which group -
Sunni or Kurd - the UIA forms a coalition with in
the next government.
"Adel Abdel Mehdi thinks that his alliance, his
coalition is the Kurd, while Dr. Jaffari thinks his
coalition is the Arab Sunnis," he added. "The
compass may go in a different way, in a different
direction. It depends on who is going to be
selected."
The parties are jockeying for four powerful cabinet
positions: the ministers of interior, defense,
finance and oil. Redha Taki, head of the political
bureau at the powerful Supreme Council for the
Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest
party within the UIA, listed some posts his party is
willing to give Sunnis Arabs.
"If they want one of two ministry of security, I
mean Defense or Interior, it is okay to go for Sunni
group," he explained. "They have got vice
presidents, deputy prime minster, speaker, and one
or two important ministers like finance, it is no
problem."
But Taki and his party do have a problem with
members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party, and
this was made clear in a speech by SCIRI head Abdel
Aziz Al Hakim last week. He said de-Baathification
would be non-negotiable. This position could
endanger attempts by the United States and Iraqi
government to enlist Sunnis in the political process
and draw them away from the insurgency.
SCIRI has also opposed any new negotiations on the
constitution. Sunnis took part in December's
election after watching the previous Shiite and
Kurdish dominated parliament pass a document that
allowed for a semi-autonomous mini state in the
south, like that of the Kurdish provinces in the
north. It is a process known here as federalization,
and Taki defended SCIRI's hard-line public position
on it, even though his party agreed to negotiate
previously.
"We don't know why they accept federalization for
Kurdish people, but don't accept same law and the
same idea to other Iraqi people, especially in the
south and middle of Iraq," said Mr. Taki.
This position has brought an outcry from Sunni
leaders like Tariq Al Hashemi, a senior official in
the Sunni Accordance Front and a member of the new
parliament, who say SCIRI's Leader, Hakim, is
playing with fire. "He raised this issue in this
very, very critical time in fact, and make this
political chaos and tried to increase the political
tension for all Iraqis," he noted.
Taki says that despite the appearance of being hard
line, the Shiite UIA is willing to compromise and
that his party is looking to include all Iraqis in
the political process.
The ability of all of Iraq's politicians to
compromise will be known in the next few months, as
the government forms and they debate the
constitution, federalism, the distribution of
natural resources.
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