Iraq's Elections

Iraq's Elections
Phyllis Bennis
Institute for Policy Studies, 20 December 2004

Do we support the planned Iraqi elections?

We start from a position of principle. We support elections as one component
of democratization. But not every election is a legitimate instrument of democracy.
An election cannot be legitimate when it is conducted under foreign military

occupation; when the country is nominally ruled by, and the election will be
officially run by, a puppet government put and kept in place by the occupying
army and the election will be under the ultimate control of the occupying army;
when war is raging extensively enough to prevent participation by much of the
population; and when the election is designed to choose a new assembly responsible
for drafting a constitution and selecting a government that will continue to
function under the conditions of military occupation. (We can see a dangerous
precedent in Afghanistan where US support ensured the election of Hamid Karzai.)
As currently planned, the January 30th elections in Iraq are designed to provide
a veneer of credibility and legitimacy to the continuation of US control of
Iraq, through election of a US-friendly government that will welcome the US
military bases in Iraq, and through the drafting of a US-oriented constitution.

How are the planned Iraqi elections different from other elections held under
occupation?

The United Nations has claimed that the precedent for "legitimate" elections
held under military occupation is the 1999 UN-run election in East Timor. But
there are significant differences. Most importantly, UN resolutions had, since
1976, officially deemed the Indonesian occupation illegal and called on Indonesia
to withdraw. The 1999 vote was not to select a puppet "government" to administer
East Timor under continuing Indonesian occupation but was a direct referendum
on whether or not to end the occupation - a choice never offered to Iraqis. Additionally,
the Indonesian military was pressured sufficiently so there was little military
violence during the referendum itself. (The Indonesian military's razing of much
of Dili came after the election, not before or during.) And the balloting was
run directly by the United Nations, with thousands of UN election workers and
a wide array of international monitors.

The Iraqi election will also be qualitatively different than the Palestinian
election planned for January 9th. That election will face severe challenges
of legitimacy, but there is some hope that it may succeed in reinvigorating Palestinian
national life. While that poll will also take place under conditions of military
occupation, the election will be run completely by the Palestinians themselves.
However flawed the limited institutions of Palestinian democracy that emerged
over the last decade, there is a functioning civil society and parliamentary
structure and a national process not directly controlled by the occupying forces.
The level of occupation violence in Palestine is very high, but generally much
lower than the full-scale warfare characterizing much of Iraq. Legitimacy will
be based, among other things, on whether Israel allows Jerusalemites to participate
in the vote, and whether international demands on Israel (not primarily from
the US) will be sufficient to force Tel Aviv to shut down its hundreds of checkpoints,
pull its troops back from population centers, and open all roads in the occupied
territories for campaigning as well as the actual vote.

What other kind of election could be held in Iraq?

One alternative would be to arrange the kind of referendum the UN ran in East
Timor, in which Iraqis would vote on whether or not to end the occupation and
for the foreign troops to be withdrawn. A possible three-choice ballot, for
instance, might include the options of voting to maintain foreign troops as they
are today; voting to set a date certain for the future withdrawal of foreign
troops; or voting for the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops. No consideration
was ever given to providing Iraqis with this kind of referendum, and there have
been no serious recent efforts to find out the opinion of the Iraqi population
regarding the maintaining of the US occupation.

What is likely to happen if the Iraqi elections are held as currently planned?
There is little doubt that the US is trying to reduce the resistance as much
as possible in anticipation of the January 30th election plan. It seems likely
this escalation will take place in smaller scale operations than either the April
or November offensives in Fallujah. And in response, resistance military attacks,
more on Iraqis viewed as collaborating with the occupation forces than on US
troops directly, are already increasing. So despite those US efforts, or perhaps
because of them, it is likely that many parts of the country, particularly though
not solely in regions where Iraqi Sunnis are dominant, will remain too violent
for people to go to the polls in large numbers.

Powerful US political operations are also underway in Iraq aimed at influencing
the outcome of the elections. Whatever money may be entering Iraq from Iran
or other regional centers, it is almost certain that (despite official Washington
denials) US financial and political influence-buying is far more extensive.
Both the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican
Institute (IRI) have major campaigns underway to help "train" and provide "capacity
building" to various Iraqi parties - ostensibly open to all parties, recruiting
favors those deemed open to maintaining close US ties, and those viewed as
likely to move Iraq's economy towards privatization and globalization. The US
Agency for International Development has provided about $80 million to these
and other organizations, many of them working under the auspices of the Cold
War-era National Endowment for Democracy, to "assist" Iraqi parties in the run-up
to the elections. The result will almost certainly be the election of many parties,
slates and candidates at least open to, if not strongly committed, to a US-centered
political, military and economic trajectory.

Who will participate in the election?

If the election takes place, under almost any scenario the most votes will go
to the Shi'ite -dominated alliance headed by supporters of Grand Ayatollah Ali
al-Sistani. Aside from those Iraqis who may not be able to vote because of high
levels of occupation-linked violence, boycotts of the vote have been threatened
or at least hinted at by a wide array of Iraqi forces. They include most of the
Sunni-dominated parties, secular parties including some with significant Shi'ite
participation, a few leading Shi'ite politicians, and the main Kurdish parties.
Each have different reasons for staying out of the vote. The Sunni-defined parties
are concerned that escalating violence in regions where they are demographically
powerful will prevent their supporters from going to the polls in large numbers.
A few Shi'ite politicians have expressed concern that elections held under these
flawed conditions will not be deemed legitimate in the international arena, and
so they are calling for the vote to be delayed. Secular parties and electoral
alliances have major concerns about holding elections under conditions of occupation
and about the undemocratic results of holding elections with major population
sectors unable or unwilling to participate. Kurdish opposition is not rooted
in concerns about voter access; the Kurdish-dominated north is probably the area
of the country least directly damaged by the occupation and war. Although actual
public opinion in the Kurdish areas is unknown and many Kurds may well distrust
the two powerful Kurdish parties, those parties still may well command a higher
level of support from the Kurdish population than is true in other sectors of
the country. It may be that the main Kurdish parties are calling for delaying
the vote in order to have more time to further consolidate their autonomous governing
structures and powerful military forces (the US military brought Kurdish pesh
merga troops down from northern Iraq to participate in the Pentagon's Fallujah
offensive). The Kurds have been concerned that their current US-sanctioned
autonomy might be undermined if a future national government drafts a constitution
that does not include the same guarantees as the prevailing US-sponsored "transitional
administrative law."

Has Iraq always been so divided between Sunnis and Shi'ites?

It should be noted that modern Iraq has a long history of secularism and relatively
cordial relations between the main Arab religious division (the Kurds have been
discriminated against, often violently, for decades) of Shi'ite and Sunni. But
the cumulative effects of sanctions-driven shredding of the social contract,
and the occupation-caused crisis of violence and impoverishment, appear to be
causing many Iraqis to claim their religious affiliation as a replacement for
national identity. For many, the appeal of the religious- and sectarian-based

parties lies less in the specifics of their sometimes extreme theology, and more
in their ability to provide at least a modicum of schooling, health care, employment,
and social welfare that the US occupation has so often promised yet consistently
failed to provide. (Similar to the appeal of Hamas in the poverty-wracked Gaza
Strip.) So the elections, if held, may in fact show a higher proportion of popular
support for the various religious-based parties in terms of who shows up to vote
and who stays home. (Note: for a very good short piece on the Iraqi resistance see "Why Elections
Won't Quell Iraq Resistance" by Molly Bingham in the Boston Globe, December 15,
2004.)

What will the results likely look like?

With the victory of al-Sistani's political alliance, there will likely be greater
influence of Shi'ite clerics (although few clerics are themselves running for
office), rather than the secular US-backed Iraqis, many of them Shi'ite and
largely former exiles, who dominate the current "government" in Iraq. It is ironic,
of course, that it is precisely US pressure for early elections under occupation
that is causing greater unease among Sunni sectors, and in all probability an
even stronger Shi'ite domination of the results than otherwise - meaning Washington
itself is setting the stage for greater Iranian influence inside Iraq. Other
regional consequences may include the reduction of Saudi and/or Jordanian influence.
Overall, however, the US will remain the dominant power in the country as
long as its military occupation remains, and its political and especially economic
influence will remain even beyond the lifespan of the direct military deployment
(see section above on NDI and IRI).

Will an "elected" Iraqi assembly or government demand an end to the occupation?

It is virtually certain that a legitimate, truly national election in Iraq would
call for an end to foreign occupation. But this process is not going to be legitimate
or truly national. And it is not at all clear that even a Sistani-controlled
assembly would, despite pre-election claims, demand that the US end the occupation
and that occupation troops be withdrawn. Given the Bush administration's investment
in this election, Washington will have little choice but to endorse the assembly
voted in, regardless of its political composition. It is certainly possible that
the victors of this flawed process may in fact call for an immediate end to the
occupation. But it is probably more likely that, regardless of their earlier
orientation, the winners may conclude that their own potential for power and
influence within this US-controlled reality is best served by agreeing to work
with, rather than challenge, the US occupation.

Certainly any specific call by any Iraqi forces to end the US occupation must
be supported. But even if an "elected" Iraqi assembly chosen in an illegitimate

election under conditions of occupation, refuses to call for foreign troops to
depart, or worse, even welcomes their presence, that does not obligate the international
peace movement to follow suit. To the contrary, our obligation, rooted in international
law and our own commitment to internationalism and to challenging our own government's
violations of international law, requires us to maintain the clarity of our demand
for an immediate end to the occupation and the immediate withdrawal of US troops.

Our work continues to demand a consistent focus on ending the war and bringing
the troops home now.