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Elections process and civil society in
Kurdistan
17.3.2010
Quesnay Arthur/Thierry Gaspard |
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March
17, 2010
In Kurdistan, the electoral vote of March 7th, 2010
must be understood in the context of a process of
pacification and development of civil society, where
the vote is only the product itself.
In Erbil the elections are a possibility for the PDK
[KDP] to recycle their political legitimacy and to
claim their domination towards their concurrent in
the Kurdish political arena. If voters turned out in
numbers to go and represent the "Kurdistan" in the
Iraqi Parliament, the majority of them would still
have little hope of reversing the current partisan
relations.
According to Soran Karkow, a law student at the
Kurdish University of Erbil and an independent
observer during the elections, "the development of a
multi-party system, especially with the significant
increase of credible opposition lists such as the
list Gorran (change), should not obscure the weight
of the monolithic political structures reluctance
to alternate and renew.”
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photo: Quesnay Arthur/Thierry
Gaspard |
For NGOs involved in the poll,
such as those with a democratic point of view, the
importance of this ballot will not be recognized
within the electoral results. Instead the interest
will emerge “in a progressive silent revolution of
pacification of political relations and the movement
towards autonomy of the civil society” says Abdul
Sattar Younus, president of Iraqi Kurdistan NGO's
Network (IKNN).
"Since its founding in 2000, IKNN has attempted to
coordinate and support the development of one
hundred local NGOs. The goal is to make people
independent from the claim of their rights, their
means of action and their responsibilities,
independent of any political influence.”
For the elections, IKNN has organized the training
and distribution of more than 3,000 observers in
Kurdish territory in direct link with the High
Commission Electoral Iraqi Independent (HCEI).
From a regional perspective, elections are the
occasion where one may consolidate the organization
and the cooperation between civil actors. The
multiplication of NGOs promotes the autonomy and
efficacy of new non-political communication networks
constituting civil sectors distinguished from the
political field.
Therefore, one can observe an individual interest of
Kurds for the political object. However, it is not
possible to understand the development of individual
and autonomous interests for political issues
without considering cultural, economic, and social
transformations.
"The social situation of the Kurds has evolved
faster than the political situation" confided Dana,
civil election observer, "The economic situation of
the country is improving, people want political
change. They want to end corruption and
co-optation."
In the same poll, a voter less settled in his views,
says he wants to participate: "I am not expecting
the elections to transform things radically. The
aim, today, is to simply not waste my vote".
Indeed, for a lot of voters, the vote exceeds simple
partisan facts. Electoral action allows an
individual confirmation of self encouraged by the
open list ballot. "People are free to choose,” and
“it is important to choose" are personal expressions
that are constantly asserted, claiming a desire of
identity and social recognition combined with a
global desire to change more than a real partisan
support.
The desire for change implicates a social process
which gradually doubts the legitimacy of the
domination of important Kurdish parties present at
this election.
Billions of Dollars of international annual
investment, as well as a refreshed fever within a
culture and society, makes way for a blossoming
desire for political change. This ambition is in
stark contrast to the monolithic partisan system
which legitimates itself through a discourse founded
on stiff military values from the resistance and the
civil war.
It is difficult for this rising civil society to
overcome these values which have been branding and
suppressing it, "the overhang of pacification is
still a fragile and reversible process. Herein, a
relatively peaceful conduct of elections in
Kurdistan would ensure our rights," comments Dr.
Moshen,www.ekurd.netPresident
of the French department of the University of
Salahaddin. For him, as for many others, the vote
set a positive demonstration of a civilized mode of
political expression.
To sum up, the electoral act would not simply be a
search of ideological orientation or partisan
representation. The act symbolizes the
internalization of a process of transformation and
pacification of socio-political interactions in a
Kurdistan undergoing construction.
Copyright, respective author or news agency, hawlati
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