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Sunni Arabs Launch Political Campaign to Kick US
Out
By Juan Cole
10/27/05 "ICH" -- --
Three small Sunni parties formed a coalition list on Wednesday.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the National Dialogue Council and the
People's Gathering will join forces to contest the December 15
elections.
Before anyone gets too excited about this development, it should be
noted that Reuters goes on to report,
' "Our political program will focus more on getting the Americans
out of Iraq," Hussein al-Falluji, a prominent Sunni who took part in
talks on the constitution, told Reuters. "Our message to the
American administration is clear: get out of Iraq or set a timetable
for withdrawal or the resistance will keep slaughtering your
soldiers until Judgment Day." '
How this is good news for the Bush administration I do not
understand, but that is the way that Rupert Murdoch will spin it on
Fox Cable News.
The other thing to remember is that most Sunni Arabs in Iraq are not
followers of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is a branch of the
Muslim Brotherhood mainly based in Mosul. A lot of Sunni Arabs are
still secular Arab nationalists. Al-Hayat pointed out recently that
there is a fair Baath constituency in Iraq still, which some parties
are angling for. Even among religious Sunnis, opinion polls show
that Hareth al-Dhari of the Association of Muslim Scholars is far
more popular than Muhsin Abdul Hamid of IIP.
Still, the Sunni Arabs will certainly improve their position in
parliament on December 15.
Al-Hayat says that Muqtada al-Sadr is attempting to form a coalition
list that will run with Sunni Muslims in Anbar. There has been a
pan-Islamic tinge to the cooperation of hardline Shiite nationalist
Muqtada with hardline Sunni nationalists such as the Association of
Muslim Scholars.
AP is reporting that the Sadrists will largely stay in the
United Iraqi Alliance. It also says that Grand Ayatollah Sistani is
not endorsing the largely Shiite UIA this time around, having been
disappointed by the performance of the Jaafari government.
Personally, I think that the control of 9 provinces by the Supreme
Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and its allies gives the UIA
such a strong party "machine" in the provinces that they no longer
need Sistani's endorsement to win.
AP also says that the Iraqi National Congress, which leans more to
the secular side (but actually you could say it just leans to any
side that benefits it at any time), has split from the UIA. Unless
it gets a big infusion of foreign money and buys a lot of votes, I'd
be surprised if the INC can win more than a handful of seats running
on its own in a free election.
The Iraqi Electoral Commission has released the distribution of
seats by province. The distribution seems to me grossly unfair to
the Kurds and incredibly generous to the Sunni Arabs, but it is
unlikely that the Sunni Arabs will be able to take advantage of this
opportunity, because so many of them reject the idea of elections in
the shadow of foreign military occupation, while others will be
afraid to come out and vote, for fear of guerrilla reprisals. About
35 seats will not be contested by election as I understand it, but
will be appointed in some way. That would leave about 230 in play in
the elections.
How the 230 would be apportioned in the election can only be guessed
out. But let me just do a thought experiment to see what is likely
to happen. I am not making tight predictions, just thinking
heuristically to get the likely lay of the land.
Below, I am going to arrange the seats by likely ethnic outcome:
Sunni Arabs:
Al-Anbar 9 Salahuddin 8 Ninevah 19
I think the Sunni Arab lists will get all the seats in Anbar and
Salahuddin, for 17. I think they will pick up about 10 in Ninevah
(they would get more, but the turnout may be light among Sunni
Arabs, throwing a disproportionate number of seats to the Kurds and
perhaps Shiite Turkmen). So that is 27.
Other places the Sunnis could pick up some seats are:
Babil 11 Baghdad 59 Diyalah 10
However, if the constitutional referendum was any guide, the Sunni
Arabs seem unlikely actually to compete well in these mixed
provinces. Again, in provinces such as Anbar and Salahuddin where
they are the vast majority, light turnout will still produce Sunni
seats in parliament. But in the mixed provinces, light Sunni turnout
would allow Shiites to pick up most of the seats. I think this is
what will happen. From the three provinces above, the Sunni Arabs
could pick up as few as 15 seats. They could also get a few seats
here and there elsewhere.
So, the Sunni representation in the new parliament could increase
from the current 17 to more like 45 to 50. But I think this is the
upper range. Obviously, this group could easily be outvoted by the
Shiites and Kurds.
The Kurds
Duhok 7 Erbil 13 Sulaimaniyah 15 Kirkuk 9
The Kurds will get almost all the seats in the three northern
provinces where they predominate, for a total of about 35. I suspect
they will get about 5 of the Kirkuk seats, though it could be more
if there is light Sunni Arab turnout. Call it 40.
They can also pick up some seats from some mixed provinces, say 7 or
so from Ninevah and a few from Diyalah. There are said to be a lot
of Kurds in Baghdad province (several hundred thousand), and they
could get 5 or so there. Call it 55.
So, I think the Kurds will be cut down from their current 78 seats
to only about 50 or 55, and they they will have only a few more
seats than the Sunni Arabs or perhaps only be equal to them.
The Shiites:
Basra 16 Karbala 6 Maysan 7 Muthanna 5 Najaf 8 Qadisiyah 8 Dhi Qar
12 Wasit 8
I believe that the Shiite religious parties will dominate all of the
Shiite-majority provinces. There are 70 seats above, and all but a
handful will go to the United Iraqi Alliance or its successors. (The
Basra middle class could vote for Iyad Allawi's secular list or for
the INC. But it has been devastated as a constituency by decades of
poor economy, with many of its members driven into poverty or
abroad. It is easy to be surprised in making these prognostications,
but if the secular parties got more than 3-5 seats from Basra, I
would be astonished. I doubt anyone in Dhi Qar or Wasit would vote
for them, and certainly not in Karbala or Najaf).
Then let's revisit the mixed provinces:
Babil 11 Baghdad 59 Diyalah 10
The religious Shiites could pick up as many as 60 of these 80 seats.
Remember that they may also pick up stray seats in mixed provinces
such as Ninevah and Kirkuk. So the religious Shiites could have 130
seats easily. They need 138 for a simple majority. They could get
it. But in any case they will be close to a simple majority, and
would probably only need to find a couple of small lists with which
to ally in order to form a government. Moreover, there is the wild
card of the 35 or so appointive seats. If any of them go to the
religious Shiites, it would clench it.
You could also imagine an alliance of the Shiite fundamentalists
with the Iraqi Islamic Party on issues such as Islamic law. If that
development occurred, I suspect it would hasten Kurdish secession,
since the Arabs could consistently outvote the more secular-leaning
Kurdish bloc if they united.
Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan -
Visit his blog http://www.juancole.com
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