Iraqi Democrats
Can't Win
In This Desperate Election
By Jonathan Steele
28 January, 2005
The
Guardian
Stroll,
if you dare, along the Shatt al Arab, the fast-flowing waterway which
connects this city to the Persian Gulf, and you come across a sad looking
park. Where children shrieked on roundabouts and families enjoyed the
shade on summer evenings, birds are now the only living creatures behind
padlocked gates.
The invading British
expropriated the park, and put it inside a no man's land overlooked
by gun turrets, when they took over the palace complex which Saddam
Hussein built a little further along the waterfront.
Now the dictator's
compound is a smaller version of Baghdad's green zone, housing the British
and American consulates and loads of portakabins for security guards
and other contractors. Iraqi workers are busy digging ground for a swimming
pool.
The British consulate
must surely be the most secluded, and the most bizarre, in the world,
a sprawling sandstone villa behind 12ft-high concrete walls and three
rows of razor wire strung through the water.
Two tugs chunter
down the river, pushing what appear to be empty barges. "Oil smugglers,"
says a diplomat as two British patrol boats speed past in the opposite
direction, taking no notice. "There are probably a thousand tons
in each one."
Ancient lawlessness,
lost amenities, and foreign occupiers are not all one sees in Basra
these days. An election campaign has been unfolding here which has been
touted as a major turning point in Iraq's return to normality. It has
certainly been livelier and more trouble-free than elsewhere in Iraq.
Election posters
are sprouting on walls like ivy, including those of polling stations,
in what will be a violation of the rules if they are not taken down
before Sunday.
As most Shias want
to vote, the risk of violence is relatively low, though you would not
know it from the Baghdad-style precautions the British are taking. British
tank units were even doing exercises this week for what they call the
doomsday scenario - how to retake Basra if militias of the radical cleric
Moqtada al Sadr were to seize it.
Whoever wins, much
will be made of the turnout figure, as it always is when polls take
place during insurgencies. Every vote will be described by the British
and US governments as a vote against terrorism and against those who
called for a boycott. Washington and London also trumpet the huge number
of party lists on the ballot as though quantity alone guarantees choice.
In fact the differences between the various lists and candidates' programmes
is minimal.
The key issue of
how long the occupation should continue has not been debated. This leaves
the many Iraqis who want to see an early end to it in a dilemma. A contested
election is undoubtedly seen by many Iraqis as a historic step forward.
On the down side, the vote gives legitimacy to the occupation, especially
when there is no party on the ballot which is campaigning unambiguously
for the troops' departure.
Very few Iraqis
talk of the invasion as a liberation these days. The vast majority call
it an occupation, yet they see no party or candidate articulating that
viewpoint. So the sense of powerlessness and disenfranchisement persists.
"The west loves
elections in conflict-ridden countries," a veteran UN official
commented after the Afghan poll last autumn. "They create a logistical
challenge. They produce winners and losers, and if they are successful
they give a real sense of achievement. But how much do they really change
things?"
It's a question
many Iraqis are asking. Security, the water supply, long hours of power
cuts and petrol shortages remain as bad as they were last year, if not
worse. Joblessness is huge, as is disappointment that the government
still seems impotent in spite of the much-vaunted "transfer"
of sovereignty last June. Will the new one be any better? Will it even
produce a different line-up of faces?
The Americans will
undoubtedly urge the new government to include Sunni politicans, even
though the main Sunni parties are boycotting the poll. Diplomats talk
of a "corrective mechanism" by which Sunnis can be appointed
to the constitution-drafting commission which the newly elected assembly
will oversee.
While this may be
laudable as a technique to lessen the risk of civil war, it serves to
undermine the validity of the poll if unelected people are appointed
to key institutions afterwards.
It also begs the
question of whether American policies - excessive use of force in Sunni
areas, and the use of Shia militias in the new Iraqi army in the campaign
against Sunni insurgents - are not a bigger factor in exacerbating sectarian
tensions than this election's regional imbalance.
The urban middle
class is spooked by the violence. The fears that the few foreign civilians
in Iraq have for their own safety is nothing to what Iraqis feel for
themselves and their families. There is no "green zone" for
them. Even the most anti-occupation nationalists are torn between wanting
a rapid departure of foreign troops and worries about surviving until
nightfall.
Add to that the
fear, almost certainly exaggerated, that religious extremists will come
to power, and you begin to understand the worries of secular progressives.
Although insecurity has increased under prime minister Iyad Allawi,
some will vote for him in the hope that he will become the strong hand
which he has not yet been. In this desperate process many secular democrats
discredit their own values.
The real battlelines
in Iraq are not so much between Sunnis and Shias as between those who
go along with the occupation and those who resist it. We may be witnessing
the Vietnamisation of the war, as the guerrilla insurgency puts down
roots in more and more cities to the north and west of Baghdad and starts
to take the fight to districts of Baghdad.
Haifa Street, close
to the capital's very heart, is already becoming a no-go area. In the
future more areas of the city may see roving guerrilla checkpoints.
If the US follows the brutal tactics it adopted against Falluja and
inflicts them on other population centres, the insurgency will spread
even faster.
Sunday's election
will show that you can manage to hold an election in the midst of an
insurgency. It will therefore be hailed as a logistical and democratic
triumph. But it will not solve Iraq's central problem: how to restore
the country's sovereignty.
The paradox of the
landscape which will become clear after Sunday's election is that only
by fixing a timetable for the departure of foreign troops will Iraq
have any chance of stability, yet the government which will take office
will probably neither want nor dare to do it.