Elections part two

Another update on some of what's swirling around plans for elections, this one in Iraq. Again, it includes some background also mentioned in a previous post.

While most of the focus in the US media seems to be on our maneuvering the UN into (again) endorsing US plans for Iraq, this time by having the world body send to Iraq a team that's expected to agree it's not possible to hold elections before the planned "handover of power" on June 30, there is a real possibility of an intense crisis building up, driven by the conflicting desires of Kurds and hardline Shiites.

The Shiites want immediate direct elections, expecting that by their majority of the population they will dominate the results and thus the government. They have no desire to wait until after a constitution that could lock in roles for Sunnis and Kurds. Prompted by hardline ayatollah Muqtada al-Sadr, thousands demonstrated in Baghdad, Karbala, and Najaf on Tuesday to, reports the London-based daily Asharq al-Awsat,

decry the federal system for Iraq called for by the Kurds. ... A representative of Sadr said: "We are demonstrating against federalism because we know its results in Yugoslavia. Federalism is an Israeli plan to divide us."

(Sadr and Ali al-Sistani are rivals; some have suggested that Sistani's stiffening insistence on immediate elections was driven in part by a fear that he was losing influence to Sadr.)

But a federation is exactly what the Kurds are insisting on. In fact, Masood Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and a member of the Governing Council, told the Islamic daily Adda'awa on Wednesday that he

doubted a future elected Iraqi government would support the Kurds' ambitions for autonomy in areas they historically consider their home - including Kirkuk. As a result, he said, there is no reason to delay any decision favouring such autonomy, and anyone who objects to it fails to display good intentions.

Again on Wednesday, he asserted to Azzaman, another London-based Arabic daily,

[f]ederalism has long been agreed upon by all Iraqi political powers ... even before the downfall of the previous regime.

Meanwhile, Asharq al-Awsat reports, five smaller Kurdish political parties have formed the New Kurdistan Front, aimed at creating a united front for autonomy.

The five parties urged the two major Kurdish parties - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) headed by Jalal Talabani and the Democratic Party of Kurdistan (DPK) headed by Masood Barzani - to join their new organization. The five also insisted on federalism on a national and geographic basis, in addition to including Kirkuk as part of Kurdistan.

So on the one hand we have support for a federation being called "an Israeli plan" and on the other we have opposition to it being called "displaying bad intentions."

This, and not whether or not elections are possible before June 30, is the actual root of the conflict, one which no tinkering with caucus structures is going to fix. In the immediate aftermath of the first Gulf War, I said that the breakdown of Iraq into a three-way civil war was a real possibility. At the time, Saddam Hussein, batterd though he was, was still a single-minded central figure that through firepower and brutality kept that breakdown from happening - and himself in power. Now, there is neither such a "strongman" figure nor a unifying symbol: The White House wants out for domestic political reasons and the IGC reflects the same divisions the society does.

Does this mean chaos is inevitable? No. But it does mean that any celebrations of a "new Iraq" are seriously premature.

Footnote: The link to all the above stories is this one at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.