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December 08, 2004

Don't blink or you'll miss it

With all the news stories about how the election must go forward for January 30th, you would think the media might show some interest in what the election will actually decide. You would be wrong. I don't check google news for a day or two, and I miss the disintegration and rebuilding of the Sistani list, not exactly a minor development.

From Tuesday's New York Times:

Published: December 7, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 6 - A rift has developed among the major Shiite political groups here, raising the prospect of fierce competition for votes among rival Shiite factions in the coming elections and possibly altering the religious and political alignment of the country's new national assembly.

The development is a major setback for Iraq's most powerful religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali alSistani, who appointed a committee in October to create a single coalition dominated by Shiite religious parties. A majority of Iraqis are Shiites, but their leaders have expressed concern that without a united front, they may lose the allegiance of more secular voters and fail to dominate the new government.

On Monday a coalition of several dozen groups and individuals calling itself the Shiite Council announced plans to break away from the United Iraqi Alliance, the new umbrella group formed under Ayatollah Sistani's auspices.

Ayatollah Sistani was reportedly trying to repair the rift through intermediaries as late as Monday evening. But the divisions over power sharing and other issues appeared to be so deep that it was "almost impossible" to reconcile the two sides, officials with the Shiite Council said.

From the same day's Chicago Tribune:

Posted on Tue, Dec. 07, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq - (KRT) - Representatives of Iraq's top Shiite cleric, the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Tuesday finalized an electoral coalition that will group all the country's major Shiite parties, most minor ones and dozens of independents on a single slate.

The coalition's broad reach will put it in a commanding position to gain a sizeable percentage of the majority-Shiite vote in Iraq's election scheduled for Jan. 30, and perhaps dominate the National Assembly that will draft a new permanent constitution for Iraq.

The coalition will run as the United Iraqi Alliance, though among most Iraqis it is already being referred to simply as "Sistani's list." That alone is likely to give it a boost among Iraqi Shiites, who universally respect their top religious leader, regardless of their political views.

The crafting of the unified list of candidates represents a triumph for the ayatollah, who has cast aside his traditional detachment from politics to work toward uniting Iraq's Shiites behind the electoral process.

A threat by several smaller Shiite parties and secularists to pull out of the coalition and contest the election independently was averted at a meeting in Baghdad between the parties and al-Sistani's representatives late Tuesday, participants said.

The Shiite Political Council, an umbrella organization of 38 political parties, was persuaded to join the coalition after announcing last week that it would withdraw to protest the preponderance of religious hard-liners on the list, said Hussein Musawi, a spokesman for the group.

At the time, Musawi had complained that "all the top names on the list are turbaned men who support wilayat al faqih," the theory of governance pioneered by Iran's late leader, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi, the former favorite of the Bush administration, also confirmed its participation Tuesday after expressing similar reservations. A spokesman for Chalabi, Haidar Musawi, said some of the group's concerns had been addressed by reshuffling the order of names on the list.

Had either or both these two groups decided to run independently, al-Sistani's vision of presenting a united Shiite front to the electorate would have been diluted.

Such is the weight, however, of the groups already represented on the list that any one party would find it hard to compete against it, something acknowledged by the Shiite Council in deciding to rejoin the list.

I guess the list of candidates for DNC chair speaking in Orlando this weekend won't be the only fast changing news item to keep an eye on.

Here are some more details from Radio Free Europe:

By Charles Recknagel for RFE/RL (08/12/04)

Iraqis are due to go to the polls on 30 January to elect a new National Assembly. The National Assembly will choose a new interim government and appoint a body to write the country's first post-Saddam Hussein constitution. Ahead of the vote, hundreds of Iraqi parties are jockeying to form alliances to improve their chances of winning seats. Now, one of the biggest coalitions to date has emerged - a United Iraqi Alliance endorsed by preeminent Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Its organizers officially announced yesterday that it would field 240 candidates for the National Assembly, saying the list represents "the birth of a new, democratic, and just Iraq". By any measure, the new United Iraqi Alliance has a diverse membership. The biggest players are Iraq's two main Shi'ite religious parties - the Supreme Council For the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and Al-Da'wah party. Both of those parties are currently in the government of interim prime minister Iyad Allawi. But the alliance also includes representatives of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has led two uprisings against US forces in southern Iraq. And it includes the secular Iraqi National Congress (INC) of Ahmad Chalabi, a former US ally now distanced by Washington. Those are the familiar groups represented on the list. But at least half of the list's total of 240 candidate slots will reportedly be awarded to far less well-known parties. The lesser-known figures include independent Shi'ite leaders, as well as representatives of the Turkish-speaking Turkoman minority and the minority of Iraqi Kurds who are Shi'ite. They also include representatives of one of Iraq's largest Sunni tribes, the Shammar, which extends from parts of the south of the country to Mosul in the north.

Alliance has broad geographical base

All that gives the alliance - which says just over two-thirds of its candidates will be Shi'ite - a broad geographical and communal base. Announcing the new alliance yesterday, former nuclear scientist Hussein al-Shahristani - one of the list's best-known organizers - called it a "truly national alliance - not a Shi'ite list". Still, if the new alliance has a national span, its biggest appeal is likely to be to the some 60 per cent of Iraqis who are Shi'ite. That is because the alliance was cobbled together under the auspices of a six-person committee endorsed by preeminent Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani. Kamran al-Karadaghi, an expert on Iraq at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in London, said al-Sistani's endorsement assures large numbers of Shi'ite will come out to vote for the alliance's candidates. "Al-Sistani's endorsement will definitely play a role to ensure a large proportion of Shi'ite will vote for this list. But whether that means that all Shi'ite in Iraq will vote for this, that's, of course, questionable," al-Karadaghi said. But while the new list looks certain to make a good showing at the polls, it is far less clear what its political program will be once it wins seats in the National Assembly. A top al-Sistani representative, Hamid Khaffaf, suggested in November that the list's members are united by "respect for Islam." He said the requirements for candidates joining the list were that they "do not change the Islamic character of the Iraqi people and that they do not support any legislation opposed to Shar'ia [Islamic law]." Such statements have created public speculation about whether the list has an Islamist agenda, such as pressing for Shar'ia or for greater clerical oversight of political affairs.

Too diverse to share a platform?

But analyst al-Karadaghi called the list too diverse to share such a platform. "In this united list, there are a lot personalities who are really, by name, Shi'ite and Islamists, but they are not fundamentalists or extreme Islamists, even among the Supreme Council [SCIRI], within the Al-Da'wah party," al-Karadaghi said. "We have also [in the alliance the secular] INC headed by Ahmad Chalabi and [there is former nuclear scientist] Hussain al-Shahristani himself, who is one of the main names in the list. You can't say that they are strictly very Islamic, and they would want immediately to establish an Islamic rule in Iraq." Washington has previously ruled out an Islamic theocracy in Iraq and sought to balance Islamist pressures with guarantees the country can develop a secular democratic system. Under the temporary Iraqi constitution supervised by US occupation authorities earlier this year, Islam was designated a source for legislation but not the sole source. Many analysts expect the debate over the role of Islamic law in Iraq to reemerge as a major issue when the new assembly appoints a body to write the country first post-Saddam Hussein constitution. Some analysts say the alliance members - like many coalitions forming ahead of the January vote - might have little more in common than an urge to win seats in the National Assembly by pooling their resources. The Shi'ite parties share a common interest in maximizing Shi'ite representation in the assembly, while non-Shi'ite groups can parlay their support of the al-Sistani-backed list into more seats than they might get otherwise.

A strong candidate for the January poll

The new alliance is widely considered to be one of the strongest candidate lists now in competition for the 30 January vote. The run-up to the poll has seen jockeying among hundreds of parties to form coalitions, as well as calls for boycotts from parts of the Sunni community. Another likely major player in the poll is a party being formed by Iraq's Sunni Arab interim president, Ghazi Ajir al-Yawir. That party - called The Iraqis - groups Sunni and Shi'ite figures, including several current government ministers. Many Kurdish groups, including the two major Kurdish parties, have agreed to form a unified candidate list of their own. Jalal Talibani, head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, recently called "on the people of Kurdistan to participate in the elections, as we need very single vote to obtain as many seats as possible in the Iraqi National Assembly." But voter registration has been severely hampered by poor security conditions in many Sunni-majority areas of central Iraq. Iraq's main Sunni Muslim political party - the Iraqi Islamic Party - withdrew from Allawi's government in protest over the US-led security operation in Falluja in November. The influential Muslim Clerics' Association has called for a boycott of the January vote, saying the election "intends to achieve the aims of the occupying authority in Iraq and the authorities cooperating with them."

Posted by Mike at December 8, 2004 12:41 PM

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