Shi’ites and Kurds Can Ignore Iraq’s Sunni Arabs

The results for the December election in Iraq became more or less official on Friday, with all parties having 5 days to protest the result. While there will be some, there won’t be any seats won or lost during this rubber-stamp appeal. The western media seemed pleased to report that the Shi’ites didn’t get a majority of seats and that when combined with the Kurdish alliance, the necessary 2/3 to amend the constitution isn’t there. “The Sunnis are needed” was the message. Apparently, no one in the western media can count.

In the new parliament, there are 275 seats. That means that a majority is 138 and 2/3 is 184. The United Iraqi Alliance, which is united only in the Shi’ite community, won 128 seats, which is genuinely 10 short of a majority. This is down from the 140 it held in the interim government, but the Sunnis boycotted that vote and the nation was treated as one big electoral constituency. This time the Sunnis voted in much bigger numbers and each province was its own constituency, virtually setting aside seats for the Sunnis.

The UIA has been the ruling group since the January elections, and it has enjoyed the support of the Kurdistan Alliance, composed of Massoud Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The KA won 53 seats and will likely cooperate with the UIA again – that is, for most Kurdish politicians, the road to independence. Combined, that gives the ruling coalition 181 seats, three shy of being able to amend the constitution as they see fit.

However, within Kurdish politics, the Kurdistan Islamic Union split off from the KA arguing that the two main parties are duopolizing the process in Kurdistan and, moreover, are too secular. This makes them, at first look, opponents of the coalition. Looks are deceiving.

While the KIU is largely Sunni, its dispute with the Shi’ite UIA might just be over minor points of religious doctrine, or quite simply tradition. It is entirely conceivable that the KIU would back the coalition in exchange for a bit more power both in Baghdad and in Kurdistan. Politicians, democratic or not, all understand that the idea is to be in power, not out of it. Its publicly proclaimed strategies are moderate but definitely Muslim and envision Kurdish autonomy (if not more). Why is it so hard to believe that a coalition of Muslim and Kurdish alliances couldn’t find room for a Kurdish Muslim group under its umbrella – especially if that means having the power to do as one wants with the nation’s constitution. This means the Iraqi Sunni Arabs are not needed, and someone has to be the opposition.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
Produced using Fedora Linux.


Home