Iraq's poll miasma

The Iraqi parliament passed a provincial election law last week ending a lengthy political stalemate. The bill was premised as much on US and UN hectoring as on a genuine desire for engagement and the expansion of the political process to incorporate underrepresented groups.

With the provincial council polls already delayed, both Washington and the UN were concerned that a failure on the part of Iraq's feuding political factions to come to terms would undermine recent progress on the security front, crucial to the eventual drawdown of foreign forces, while promoting obstinacy on a much-delayed national oil law.

Provincial elections will be held in 14 of the country's 18 governates early next year. Elections in the three provinces of the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) will be held later in 2009, with a vote on the future of Kirkuk vote put off indefinitely, pending the findings of a government commission into local demographic and land-use changes.

Provincial governors speak of a fundamental disconnect between their administrations and the central government. This distance and lack of consensus appears to bolster the power and authority of provincial and local governments given the failure to extend central state mechanisms.

Joost Hilterman from the International Crisis Group explained to ISN Security Watch, that Iraqi provincial councils hold significant powers: "They can appoint the governor and the [provincial] police chief, they can create their own budgets […] potentially they can vote through a referendum to become regions."

The latter is particularly significant given the potential for the future formation of quasi-federal regions with significant constitutionally mandated powers over resource and revenue management that could seriously undermine central authority. This is already occurring in the case of the only extant regional authority, the Kurdish Regional Government.

Importantly, an earlier provision in the draft law allocating a quota of provincial seats to Yazidis, Christians and other minority groups was removed from the final bill, bolstering the impression that the law itself is a precursor to the division of provincial and national resources among the three largest ethnic and sectarian groups, Kurds, Sunnis and Shia.

It remains unclear whether the growing calls this week from Sunni and Shia leaders - including Premier Nouri al-Maliki - for the reinsertion of the minority group provision into the law will lead to a further delay in its passage, with the three-man presidential panel yet to sign off on the bill.

Deciding not to decide

Crucially, the election bill only passed parliament through the effective sidelining of the fraught Kirkuk issue. Kurds are seeking the incorporation of the city and region in the KRG.

President Jalal Talabani vetoed an earlier version of the provincial elections law on the basis that the Kurdish bloc was not party to discussions on Kirkuk that reportedly included talks on the transition of security control from peshmerga to state security forces. Talabani is the founder and secretary-general of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
 
Fearing for the future of their constituents, minority Turkmen and Arab lawmakers were party to the compromise deal on Kirkuk included in the law, which would see the fate of the city and wider province decided by the government commission.

This constitutes a significant back-down from the Kurdish parties, effectively foregoing a constitutionally mandated referendum on contested Kurdish-claimed areas, which looked certain to pass control of the city and nearby oilfields to KRG control.

"Now there is a process that everybody has agreed to, but I think it […] is going to lead to nothing," Yahia Said from the London School of Economics, told ISN Security Watch. "Simply, it [Kirkuk] is too complex and too difficult for them to come to an agreement on any aspect."

The law establishes that the current provincial administration in Kirkuk will remain in place until a separate election law for the province is promulgated, effectively freezing the status quo in the city in lieu of an unlikely political breakthrough.

Given the stakes, it seems possible that the government commission will fail to formulate a unitary stance on the issue of future governance control, with its establishment an effective delaying measure intended to allow the conduct of provincial elections elsewhere.

Tensions

While the election bill freezes the Kirkuk issue indefinitely, the Kurds still stand to lose out in border provinces where the boycott of the previous provincial poll, in January 2005, by many Sunnis allowed Kurds to win an exaggerated representative role in local administrations, out of keeping with their minority status.

"We will have to see what happens especially in Ninawa where the Kurds basically won in [2005 in] an area where they don't have even close to a [majority] of the population. To the Kurds this is a very important area because they consider parts of Ninawa governate to be belonging historically to Kurdistan," Hilterman said.

"Parts of Diyala they also consider part of historical Kurdistan and they have the council chairman there," he said, adding, "Normally, if everyone participates, they would lose that position; they'd be reduced to a minority."

As a likely turnover of skewed 2005 results nears, there has been a worrying trend of increased ethnic tensions and attacks in Kirkuk and other disputed regions bordering the KRG. At least 12 Kurds were killed in rioting in August as they attacked Turkmen political offices following a suicide bombing on a Kurdish demonstration against proposals to dilute Kurdish control of the city.

An armed standoff and clashes between peshmerga and Iraqi security forces have been reported in ethnically mixed Diyala province where Kurdish forces were bolstered during the US-led surge.

"The problems in Kirkuk could easily be replicated in Mosul, Diyala and even in Salahuddin province," Said warned. "All these provinces will be very problematic because the Kurds will seek to preserve their control."

"The fact that the Kurds feel that they have to move the peshmerga to ensure and protect their interests and those of their communities in these provinces means that they don't quite trust the political process," Said said, noting the same was true of militant activity elsewhere.

Sunni challenge

The major coup in the election law is the likely electoral participation for the first time of poor Shia and Sunni tribal and other groups that boycotted the previous provincial elections in January 2005. (Sunni parties did run in national elections that December, doing poorly.)

The resultant under-representation of Sunnis in local and - to a lesser extent - central government has led to repeated political crises at the national level.

A political transformation appears to be brewing but is yet nascent and amorphous.

This process has been facilitated by the rise of the US-sponsored Awakening groups. A rise in tensions between established political factions and the newly empowered groups has already been reported in some areas, raising concerns that the elections could result in the emergence of radical tendencies and increasing militant insinuation within the Sunni polity.

The abject failure of established Sunni parties to secure concessions on vital issues from the al-Maliki government, and the pursuit of some local Awakening Council members by Shia-controlled Iraqi security forces has further exacerbated Sunni concerns and made a transition in political power within Sunni-majority areas more likely.

The political predominance of established parties with shallow popular bases is under severe threat with the Iraqi Islamic Party slated by many observers to lose control of Anbar to tribal leaders involved in the local Awakening movement in the upcoming provincial election.

"There is a real limit probably to what the central government will allow the Awakening Councils to do; winning the provincial elections in Anbar, yes, but nothing beyond that," Hilterman said.

Baghdad assumed responsibility for paying 54,000 predominantly Sunni Awakening militiamen on 1 October. Any delays or obfuscation in carrying through on government commitments regarding payment and future incorporation of group members in the military and public service could threaten a return to violence of previous insurgent groups. This would have a serious impact on the staging of elections and incorporation of variant groups in the political process.

The potential incorporation of tribal and former militant groups in the political process in Sunni areas again raises concerns that the incoming provincial administrations could both promote internecine power struggles within Sunni communities and a further mutual distancing of provincial and national governance structures.

To Said, "It is yet to be seen how the Awakening Councils translate their notional power into political power because it is not clear yet how they will be politically represented. There is no obvious organizational framework for the Awakening councils politically,"

Shia power plays

The provincial polls will serve as an important marker in determining the relative strength of the major competing Shia political factions.

Said believes that al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa party is in a strong position to increase its power through the provincial poll. Asked why he replied, "It is thanks to the image of al-Maliki as an emerging strongman establishing law and order and the authority of the state."

The relationship between the two preeminent Shia parties in the government, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) and Dawa has reportedly broken down amidst a burgeoning struggle for control in southern provinces.    

In Shia areas, "Anecdotal evidence suggests that there will be a shift from the Islamic Supreme Council towards Dawa, towards the Sadrists, towards Fadhilla, towards some of the nationalist parties," Said said.

ISCI officials accuse Dawa of seeking to loosen its hold over four southern provinces, undermining ISCI control of high-level police and other security appointments via such measures as the establishment of superfluous pro-Dawa tribal councils. Dawa officials deny these charges.

To Hilterman, al-Maliki "has taken advantage of his control of government to place his people in key positions in the south. ISCI has […] since 2005 at least, controlled the security apparatus in many governates in the south."

"It is a serious contest, hopefully it will be a non-violent one, but it could easily, in some places, devolve into violence, especially if the Dawa party will go into [an] alliance with the Sadrists in order to hang on to power or to gain it from ISCI."

There has been a series of assassination strikes against ISCI-affiliated police and provincial chiefs in the south.

The Sadrist movement, which latest reports say is being courted by Dawa, claims that a number of its members have been assassinated in a series of politically motivated murders in southern provinces in recent months.

Weakened by internal disputes, Moqtada al-Sadr's movement will support "independents and technocrats" running for office. Divisions within the movement and the need to distance candidates both from the Mahdi Army and deeply unpopular outgoing provincial councils are likely to impose strictures on movement representation and may encourage indirect association with Dawa.

Asked if the position of Sadr's movement had improved or worsened with the violence of recent months, Said said: "It is not clear. Obviously the violence was not popular; there's impatience with the chaos and there's impatience with some of the vigilante activities and some of the forms of violence people tend to associate with the Mahdi Army."

"But, at the same time, their political program remains more popular than that espoused by the ISCI and maybe even by the Dawa party," he said,

Fragmentation or consolidation?

There appears to be a major risk that the upcoming elections and a planned census could spark clashes through revealing the proportional distribution of competing sectarian, ethnic and tribal factions in local areas.

The settling of scores and carving out of sectarian, ethnic and local fiefdoms has been attenuated but not halted by the recent security improvements and may not have played out completely, particularly in mixed areas.

In light of the political gridlock in Baghdad in recent years, and with other key issues outstanding on the national agenda, the extended representative role for underrepresented groups appears an important move towards the eventual establishment of representative government and the holding of successful national elections, currently slated for next year.

However, the overall impact of the bill on moves to foster a genuine, inclusive civil democratic regime should not be overstated given the profound governance failures of recent years, the ongoing undermining of sovereignty inherent in the occupation, and the absence of genuine anti-corruption and power-sharing mechanisms.

The risk of political dysfunction and confusion is increased by the use of an open ballot in the provincial elections, with voters to select individuals rather than parties in voting.

"At the moment what we see is fragmentation rather than consolidation. We see the […] so-called Sunni alliance fragmenting, we see the Shia alliance fragmenting and we see fragmentation within the Sadrists and within the ISCI," Said said.

However, "There is a below the waterline consolidation taking place around Maliki, which may emerge at any point and represent a dramatic shift in the political landscape," he added.

To Hilterman, "There is a possibility that the ruling parties will consolidate their control because they use institutional mechanisms, fraud what-not."

"You may see consolidation in one governate and fragmentation in another," he said.  "It's a toss up, nothing is predictable."