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Iraq's election result: a divided
nation
By Patrick Cockburn
12/21/05 "The
Independent" -- -- Iraq is disintegrating. The first
results from the parliamentary election last week show the country
is dividing between Shia, Sunni and Kurdish regions.
Religious fundamentalists now have the upper hand. The secular and
nationalist candidate backed by the US and Britain was humiliatingly
defeated.
The Shia religious coalition has won a total victory in Baghdad and
the south of Iraq. The Sunni Arab parties who openly or covertly
support armed resistance to the US are likely to win large
majorities in Sunni provinces. The Kurds have already achieved
quasi-independence and their voting reflected that.
The election marks the final shipwreck of American and British hopes
of establishing a pro-Western secular democracy in a united Iraq.
Islamic fundamentalist movements are ever more powerful in both the
Sunni and Shia communities. Ghassan Attiyah, an Iraqi commentator,
said: "In two and a half years Bush has succeeded in creating two
new Talibans in Iraq."
The success of the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of Shia
religious parties, has been far greater than expected according to
preliminary results. It won 58 per cent of the vote in Baghdad,
while Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister strongly supported by
Tony Blair, got only 14 per cent of the vote. In Basra, Iraq's
second city, 77 per cent of voters supported the Alliance and only
11 per cent Mr Allawi.
The election was portrayed by President George Bush as a sign of
success for US policies in Iraq but, in fact, means the triumph of
America's enemies inside and outside the country.
Iran will be pleased that the Shia religious parties which it has
supported, have become the strongest political force.
Ironically, Mr Bush is increasingly dependent within Iraq on the
co-operation and restraint of the Iranian President, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the eradication of
Israel. It is the allies of the Iranian theocracy who are growing in
influence by the day and have triumphed in the election. The US will
fear that development greatly as it constantly reminds the world of
Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Iran may be happier with a weakened Iraq in which it is a
predominant influence rather than see the country entirely break up.
Another victor in the election is the fiery nationalist cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia fought fierce battles with
US troops last year. The US military said at the time it intended
"to kill or capture him".
Mr Bush cited the recapture of the holy city of Najaf from the Mehdi
Army in August 2004 as an important success for the US Army. Mr Sadr
will now be one of the most influential leaders within the
coalition.
All the parties which did well in the election have strength only
within their own community. The Shia coalition succeeded because the
Shia make up 60 per cent of Iraqis but won almost no votes among the
Kurds or Sunni, each of whom is about 20 per cent of the population.
The Sunni and the Kurdish parties won no support outside their own
communities.
The US ambassador in Baghdad, Zilmay Khalilzad, sounded almost
despairing yesterday as he reviewed the results of the election. "It
looks as if people have preferred to vote for their ethnic or
sectarian identities," he said. "But for Iraq to succeed there has
to be cross-ethnic and cross-sectarian co-operation."
The election also means a decisive switch from a secular Iraq to a
country in which, outside Kurdistan, religious law will be
paramount. Mr Allawi, who ran a well-financed campaign, was the main
secular hope but that did not translate into votes. The other main
non-religious candidate, Ahmed Chalabi, won less than 1 per cent of
the vote in Baghdad and will be lucky to win a single seat in the
new 275-member Council of Representatives.
"People underestimate how religious Iraq has become," said one Iraqi
observer. "Iran is really a secular society with a religious
leadership, but Iraq will be a religious society with a religious
leadership." Already most girls leaving schools in Baghdad wear
headscarves. Women's rights in cases of divorce and inheritance are
being eroded.
Sunni Arab leaders were aghast at the electoral triumph of the Shia,
claiming fraud. Adnan al-Dulaimi, the head of the Sunni Arab
alliance, the Iraqi Accordance Front, said that if the electoral
commission did not respond to their complaints they would "demand
the elections be held again in Baghdad".
Mr Allawi's Iraqi National List also protested. Ibrahim al-Janabi, a
party official, said: "The elections commission is not independent.
It is influenced by political parties and by the government." But
while there was probably some fraud and intimidation, the results of
the election mirror the way in which the Shia majority in Iraq is
systematically taking over the levers of power. Shia already control
the ministry of the interior with 110,000 police and paramilitary
units and most of the troops in the 80,000-strong army being trained
by the US are Shia.
Mr Khalilzad said yesterday: "You can't have someone who is regarded
as sectarian, for example, as Minister of the Interior." This is a
not so-veiled criticism of the present minister, Bayan Jabr, a
leading member of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in
Iraq, the largest Shia party. He is accused of running death squads
and torture centres whose victims are Sunni Arabs.
It is unlikely that the Shia religious parties and militias will
tolerate any rollback in their power. "They feel their day has
come," said Mr Attiyah.
For six months the Shia have ruled Iraq in alliance with the Kurds.
Kurdish leaders are not happy with the way this government has
worked. The Kurds, supported by the US, will now try to dilute Shia
control of government by bringing in Sunni ministers and Mr Allawi.
But one Kurdish leader said: "We have a strategic alliance with the
Shia religious parties we would be unwise to break."
The elections are also unlikely to see a diminution in armed
resistance to the US by the Sunni community. Insurgent groups have
made clear that they see winning seats in parliament as the opening
of another front.
The break-up of Iraq has been brought closer by the election. The
great majority of people who went to the polls voted as Shia, Sunni
or Kurds - and not as Iraqis. The forces pulling Iraq apart are
stronger than those holding it together. The election, billed by Mr
Bush and Mr Blair as the birth of a new Iraqi state may in fact
prove to be its funeral.
Copyright: The Independent
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