Downward spiral

Iraq's national elections reveal how split the country has become along sectarian and ethnic lines. It is an alarming picture, writes Zaid Salah

---

In the end, Iraq's parliamentary elections took place amid relative tranquillity throughout the country, mostly as a result of the temporary ceasefire announced beforehand by a number of militant groups. US Vice-President Dick Cheney visited Baghdad three days later and announced, "I'm delighted to have the opportunity to spend some time today to look at the situation in Iraq, finding out on the ground how it feels, especially after the tremendous elections we had."

Yet if the elections were tremendous, it is probably not for the reasons Cheney had in mind. Indeed, they revealed to what extent Iraqis have lost all sense of national unity and faith in central authority and how they have all, almost without exception, resorted to basic tribal instincts. Each of the three largest alliances that participated in the country's elections represented one of the country's main religious or ethnic groups, and each is likely to pick up the vast majority of the votes from their respective religious and ethnic constituencies. If what Cheney had in mind was unbridled tribalism, then he is right to be satisfied.

Early indications suggest that the Shia- dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) has swept a number of the country's southern provinces. Any such predictions should, of course, be treated with caution until final results are announced, as much of what was said in earlier elections turned out to be less than accurate. In any event, there was no real competition to the UIA in many provinces, so it should come as no surprise if the alliance does as well as supporters claim it has. Success was made easier first by the fact that the Sadrist movement decided to throw its weight behind the UIA, and second by Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani's tacit support.

Moqtada Al-Sadr has been something of an enigma for some time. After declaring war against and confronting the United States on two occasions in 2004, he has been somewhat passive for most of 2005. His followers played no role to speak of in the constitutional process, thereby allowing a loose federal structure that disadvantages him to be established. In late August 2005, a number of his followers were killed by members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq -- a rival Shia Party that is supported by Iran and is a core member of the UIA. However, a few weeks later, it was announced that the UIA would officially include Sadrists. Until the announcement was made, the UIA's star was fading fast because of its poor performance in government and its association to violent militias. The result was therefore that Sadr's stance merely served to prop up a dying alliance.

The second mystery that has continued to shroud the UIA is whether or not it truly enjoys the support of Ayatollah Al-Sistani. It was rumoured on a number of occasions that Al-Sistani was disappointed with Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari's government, and that he had therefore decided to withdraw the support that he had offered the UIA during the previous elections that took place in January 2005. However, a statement was attributed to his office according to which Iraqi Shias should vote for the "strong religious alliance" and should shy away from smaller and secular parties. His office then issued a denial that this amounted to an endorsement of the UIA, but this wasn't reflected on the ground, as his face adorned party posters, slogans, and even the ID cards of party officials. In fact, on elections day, police officers in Basra were even using their loudspeakers to urge voters to support the alliance. The message and the effect was clear: Iraqi Shias should vote for the UIA.

To make matters worse, this pattern was by no means limited to only one of Iraq's many sects. Indeed, in these elections a number of Sunni Arab parties formed a major alliance that included the Iraqi Islamic Party and the National Dialogue Council, among others, in order to serve as a counterbalance to the influence of the Shia UIA. Although these parties have always been somewhat uninspiring to Sunni voters, most have decided to support their sect's representatives regardless. It is expected that the Sunni alliance will win the majority of seats in the country's Sunni-dominated areas.

Not much has changed in Iraqi Kurdistan, except that the Kurdish Islamic Federation has decided to break away from the Kurdish Alliance, which until recently was the only real political force in the region. Although it is expected that the Islamic Federation will pick up some seats in parliament, a large majority of the seats from the Kurdish provinces will inevitably be won by the Kurdish Alliance.

Sectarianism has now swept the country like the plague, and we have now reached the point where the vast majority of Sunnis would never imagine supporting a Shia politician regardless of the substance of his political discourse, and vice versa. Meanwhile, Iraq's secular and patriotic core has once again been reduced to either boycotting the elections once again or supporting Iyad Allawi -- who the country especially remembers for his incompetent and corrupt administration in 2004, his approval of the American destruction of both Falluja and Najaf, and his close association with the CIA.

In the midst of all this, Iraqi politics and electioneering have become increasingly tainted with a number of standard dirty tricks that are being replicated throughout the entire country. By way of example, wild rumours have been circulating according to which money has been flowing into the country from Iran, the Gulf countries and the US, but the fact is that no one knows what the truth really is as campaign finances are simply not recorded.

Also, two days before the elections, Iraqi police seized thousands of forged ballots that were on their way to Iraqi cities from Iran; apparently thousands more managed to reach their destinations. A few days before, more than 100 offices belonging to the Kurdish Islamic Union were torched and several of its members killed. Also, Abdul-Aziz Al-Hakim, a leading member of the UIA, has threatened that if the Baath Party (read: Iyad Allawi) returns to power, his party will take up arms.

Iraq used to be a more extreme version of the Syrian one-party state, where its population was forced to support a minority within a minority -- which is to say, a handful of uneducated thugs from a village in Salaheddin province. Now it seems that Iraq is on its way to becoming a more extreme version of Lebanon, where the results of elections are determined not according to the strength of arguments, or powers of persuasion, but on birthrates, and on which party has the most weapons. Although most ordinary Lebanese would not imagine voting for candidates from another confession than their own, there is at least some competition for votes within some sects -- so for example, Christian voters have a choice between the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Union. In Iraq, each sect is represented by a single dominant alliance, and the results of the elections will expose once and for all the extent to which sectarianism has taken hold in the country. Is this the free and democratic future we were promised?