IRAQIS REJECT US CHOICE

Although no clear winner has emerged in the January 30 general election in Iraq, what is clear, nevertheless, is that the Iraqi electorate has given a convincing thumbs down sign to the United States selected interim Prime Minister, Ayad Allawi, and his political grouping. Allawi, the United States administration’s blue-eyed boy, and his political group, originally thought a favourite, were only able to secure 1,168,943 votes or less than 14 percent of those cast in the historic election, while the clergy-backed Shi’ite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance attracted 4,075,295 voters or approximately 48 percent of those who went to the polls.  The Kurdistan Alliance came in second with 26 percent voting support. The United Iraqi Alliance will have to seek a coalition partner or partners if it is to form not merely the government but a reasonably stable one at that.

What is evident is that the electorate did not vote on the basis of ideology of party programmes but rather on religion and ethnicity.  Even the vote along religious lines was split, however, with the United Iraqi Alliance receiving the support of the Shi’ite clergy and garnering most of the votes, while the secular-inclined Allawi’s group trailed far behind. The Kurds, who had suffered greatly over the years under deposed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, and are intent on breaking away from Iraq and forming an independent state, supported the Kurdistan Alliance.

Meanwhile, what do the results of the general election hold for Iraq? A separate Kurdistan state may prove attractive to the United States and Israel as well because it will effectively weaken Iraq and reduce its potential to re-emerge as a threat in the Middle East. Iraqis having had the opportunity to vote for the first time in almost 50 years, have shown that the Sunnis, who were the dominant factor in the country under Saddam Hussein’s rule, have been marginalised as a political force.

Will the United States government, which trumpeted the election as a crucial part of the process to bring democracy to Iraq, be prepared to hold discussions with the Government that emerges on a timetable for the withdrawal of American and other troops from that beleaguered country?  In addition, will there be an unconditional withdrawal and if so will this mean the beginning of true democracy in Iraq? The United States has neither a moral nor a legal right to be in Iraq.  It lied to the United Nations and the world when it advanced that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The hawks in the George Bush administration even rejected a suggestion by former US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, that it should wait until a report by the UN Weapons Commission in Iraq was handed in.

The report would later reveal that no weapons of mass destruction had been found, and only recently, long after the invasion of Iraq, would the US administration admit that no such weapons had been found nor were likely to be found. The results of the January 30 election were a signal by Iraqis to the United States and the rest of the world that while they were happy that Saddam Hussein and his dictatorial rule were no longer around to pose a threat to their freedom, they were not going to allow the US to have a choice in determining which Iraqi should rule them.