By James Cogan
14 December 2005
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Predictably, the Bush administration has told the American people
that the elections in Iraq tomorrow will be a democratic milestone
for both the country and the broader Middle East. The truth is that
they will only produce greater conflict between the country's main
religious and ethnic groups, intensified social and class tensions
and greater hostility among the Iraqi people toward the US-led
occupation forces.
The entire US-controlled political process this year?the January 30
elections for a transitional government, the drafting of a new
constitution and the referendum on October 15?has been aimed at
giving the veneer of legal legitimacy to the plunder of the country's
oil and gas and the formation of a puppet government that will
sanction an indefinite US military presence in Iraq.
This week's ballot is the final stage. At stake are 275 seats in the
next parliament, which will sit for the next four years and elect
both the president and prime minister. Each of the country's 18
provinces has been allocated a number of seats based on population.
Baghdad, for example, the most populated province, will elect 59
parliamentarians. A total of 230 will be elected in the provinces.
The remaining 45 will be chosen by a national proportional method.
Even if it wanted to, the new government would have next to no
ability to reverse what the US invasion and occupation has already
set in motion. Iraq's economy is devastated, with unemployment close
to 50 percent, growing malnutrition, dysfunctional social services
and rampant corruption. The new constitution has already placed new
oil developments under the control of regional or provincial
governments, which have the power to sign long-term contracts with
transnational companies.
To enforce this framework, the US military and the Iraqi security
forces are conducting bloody operations in areas where guerilla
resistance groups are active, at the cost of hundreds of lives each
month. While there is talk of withdrawing up to 20,000 American
troops next year, the foreign occupation force in Iraq will remain
well over 100,000 for the foreseeable future.
Far from addressing this reality, the election campaign has been
dominated by sectarian and communal appeals. The main coalitions and
parties contesting the election have all accommodated themselves to
the neo-colonial occupation and the corporate plunder of the country.
They have no answers to the social catastrophe facing millions of
Iraqis.
Ability to nominate as a candidate was severely restricted. Under the
electoral laws imposed on Iraq by the US occupation, only people aged
over 30 who possess a high school diploma were eligible. Given that
the median age in Iraq is just 19, and that only 55.9 percent of the
men and just 24.4 percent of women can read and write, the majority
of the population was excluded from standing.
Iraqis are being urged to vote according to their religion,
ethnicity, tribe, education level, region or even city. The main
ambition of the contesting parties is to use the election to lever
their particular faction of the ruling elite?whether it is Shiite,
Sunni, Kurdish or other groupings?into political positions within a
US-dominated Iraq that can be used to bargain for privileges and
wealth.
Clerics and militias are urging Shiite Muslims?the majority of Iraq's
people?to vote again for the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA)?a coalition
between the Da'awa movement of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the
Sadrist movement of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and a dozen other
religious groups.
In 2004, the Sadrists fought major battles with the US military and
declared their solidarity with the resistance organisations that
exist among the Sunni Arab population. There was even speculation at
one point that the Sadrists would develop an electoral alliance
across the sectarian divide with the Sunni organisations. Over the
past year, however, the movement has steadily adapted itself to the
occupation and put aside its differences with SCIRI in order to gain
political positions. In recent months, Sadr struck a deal with SCIRI
to participate in the UIA, in exchange for nominating as many as one-
third of the candidates.
The UIA is predicted to win the largest number of seats in the
parliament despite growing opposition toward Da'awa and SCIRI. During
the January election, they promised a timetable for the withdrawal of
US troops and guaranteed rapid improvements in living standards. The
UIA-led government has done neither. There is also evidence that the
Shiite-dominated interior ministry and armed forces are carrying out
killings, torture and intimidation and imposing Islamic law on
secular Iraqis.
The Sadrists, however, still enjoy support among the Shiite urban
poor, ensuring a sizeable vote for the UIA in Baghdad and other
cities. Moreover, the UIA has once again been given the implicit
endorsement of Ali al-Sistani, the leading Shiite cleric in Iraq,
which is expected to consolidate its vote among rural Shiites.
However, the UIA is unlikely to win a parliamentary majority as it
did in January. Sunni Arabs, who overwhelmingly boycotted the earlier
election in protest at the US occupation and its atrocities in
Fallujah, are being urged by religious leaders and resistance groups
to vote this time. The Sunni-based coalitions include an alliance of
Islamic fundamentalist parties, the Iraqi Accordance Front, and a
coalition of secular parties, the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue,
which espouses a similar ideology to the Baathist party of Saddam
Hussein.
The Sunni lists may win as many as 60 to 70 seats. The Bush
administration and US embassy in Iraq has been actively appealing to
sections of the Sunni elite and former Baathist regime to join the
puppet government in Baghdad in order to split the armed resistance
to the occupation.
A former Iraqi army officer connected to the resistance told the
British-based Telegraph on December 11 that guerilla fighters would
be protecting Sunnis from threats by Al Qaeda to disrupt
voting. "Sunnis should vote to make political gains," he
declared. "We have sent leaflets telling Al Qaeda that they will face
us if they attack voters." The newspaper also cited Abu Abdullah, a
resistance leader, who branded Al Qaeda chief Musaab al-Zarqawi as
an "American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our
country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation".
In the predominantly Kurdish provinces of northern Iraq, the Kurdish
Alliance (KA) coalition is expected to win as many as 50 seats. The
KA is centred on the Kurdish nationalist Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
(PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Its perspective, and
that of the Kurdish elite it represents, is to participate in a
federal Iraqi government to ensure that the city of Kirkuk and the
lucrative northern oil fields of Iraq are incorporated into the
territory of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), which rules
northern Iraq as a virtual separate state.
US support for Allawi and Chalabi
The US embassy and the occupation forces appear to be working to
ensure a high vote for the coalitions headed by the longtime American
puppets, Iyad Allawi and Ahmed Chalabi. Despite the UIA's
collaboration with US imperialism, the Shiite fundamentalists are not
Washington's preferred governing party. SCIRI has close links with
the Iranian regime, which may become the next target for US
aggression. Sadr's organisation is viewed with continuing suspicion
due to its anti-occupation uprising last year.
In November, the US military raided a detention centre where Iraqi
security forces recruited from SCIRI's Badr Organisation militia were
torturing Sunni prisoners. The media in Iraq has used the revelations
to agitate for a high Sunni turnout and to tarnish the image of the
UIA and SCIRI. At the same time, large sums of money, ostensibly from
wealthy contributors across the Middle East, have flowed into the
coffers of Allawi's Iraqi National List coalition to finance blanket
television and newspaper advertisements.
Allawi, a secular Shiite, former Baathist and CIA asset who assisted
in the planning and preparation of the US invasion of Iraq, was
installed by the Bush administration as the interim prime minister in
June 2004. In August 2004, he sanctioned the US military assault on
the Najaf to dislodge Sadrist fighters who had taken control of the
main Shiite religious sites in the city. In November 2004, Allawi
gave his blessing to the bloody US offensive against the
predominantly Sunni Arab population in Fallujah.
During his tenure as interim prime minister, Allawi recruited large
numbers of the Hussein regime's agents into the CIA-controlled Iraqi
intelligence agency. At the same time, US special forces worked with
the Iraqi interior ministry to establish the police commandos?the
formation now being held responsible for the extra-judicial killings
and torture of hundreds of anti-occupation opponents.
Among many Iraqis, Allawi's reputation for brutality is such that he
is referred to as "Saddam without the moustache". Nevertheless, his
campaign is directly appealing to the many secular Iraqis of all
religious and ethnic backgrounds who are alarmed at the growing
sectarian divide in the country. He is being presented as a lesser
evil to the fundamentalists and as someone who can maintain Iraq's
unity. One of the organisations that has joined his coalition and is
assisting to perpetuate this lie is the Iraqi Communist Party.
The Iraqi National Congress (INC) of Ahmed Chalabi is also being
promoted as an alternative to the Shiite fundamentalists. Chalabi is
one of the main Iraqi exiles who collaborated in the US invasion and
is a committed advocate of the free market restructuring of the
economy.
In early 2004, Chalabi fell from favour with Washington due to his
insistence on de-Baathification at a time when the US military was
actively recruiting former Baathists into the new Iraqi security
forces. He resurrected his political fortunes by negotiating a
ceasefire between the Sadrists and the occupation. He joined with the
UIA for the January election and, in the horse-trading that followed
the ballot, was named as one of the transitional government's deputy
prime ministers.
Last month, Chalabi visited Washington and was feted by the Bush
administration. While his INC will not win many seats, the US backing
for Chalabi is likely to see him assume a prominent position in the
next government. The Washington Post, citing unnamed White House
officials, referred to him as Vice President Dick Cheney's preferred
candidate for prime minister.
The final result of the election may not be known until the New Year.
As well as the voting inside Iraq, as many as 1.5 million Iraqi
�migr�s are entitled to vote. Even before a result is in, however, US
officials in Iraq will be engaged in sordid behind-the-scenes
negotiations between the competing factions to determine the make-up
of a government that meets the interests of Washington.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/iraq-d14.shtml
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