A worrying political outlook

Oct 6th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

Iraq’s parliament has reversed a dubious decision that would have made it almost impossible for voters to reject the country’s proposed new constitution. Though the document still seems likely to be approved in this month’s referendum, splits in the governing coalition are making Iraq’s political future even more uncertain

UNDER pressure from inside the country and outside, on Wednesday October 5th Iraq’s parliament voted to rescind a decision it had taken only three days earlier, which would have made it virtually impossible for Sunni Arabs and other opponents of the country’s draft constitution to block it in an upcoming referendum. The climbdown means that the new constitution stands a better chance of eventually winning acceptance, albeit grudging, by most Iraqis.

To prevent Iraq’s Shia Muslim majority (about 60% of the population) from riding roughshod over the Sunnis (about 20%) or for that matter the Kurds (also 20% or so), the rules of the referendum had been set so that the constitution could be blocked by a two-thirds “no” vote in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces. This was widely understood to mean two-thirds of those voters who actually turned out on referendum day, October 15th—and not two-thirds of all voters on the register.

However, last weekend the parliament, dominated by Shias and Kurds, voted to interpret it as meaning two-thirds of all registered voters. Since the turnout in Iraq’s last elections was only 58% nationwide and dropped to as low as 2% in one of the Sunni provinces, the ruling would have made it all but impossible for the constitution to be rejected. Sunni leaders objected furiously, as did a few Kurdish parliamentarians. Iraq’s independent electoral commission and the United Nations, which is charged with overseeing the referendum, also cried foul. The attempt to reinterpret the referendum rules was a slap in the face of the American administration, which thinks Sunni participation in peaceful politics is vital if support for the insurgency is to be reduced.

Though the parliamentary majority backed down on Wednesday and accepted the UN’s interpretation of the rules, the episode does not inspire confidence that the country’s Shia leadership cares much about the views of Sunni Arabs. Worse still, the attempt to rig the referendum may even suggest that Shia leaders are content to see the current, incessant violence deteriorate even further into a full-scale civil war—in which they would hope to vanquish the Sunnis, Iraq’s former ruling minority, once and for all.

After weeks of sporadic negotiations over last-minute changes to the constitution, the UN has printed a final version of the document and has begun to distribute it, though its content is still unknown to most Iraqis. American officials reportedly tried and failed to get a few extra clauses inserted into the document to win over the Sunnis, who say they will still seek to defeat it.

Even so, the constitution may well pass. Sunnis are thought to predominate in four provinces but are badly organised compared with the Shias and Kurds. They are also more likely to live in places where violence may deter voters from going to the polls. Whatever happens, it is likely that the Sunnis will feel left out. But at least parliament, with its last-minute change of heart, has been dissuaded from rubbing their powerlessness in their face.

The Sunni rejectionists’ best hope now is to team up with the unpredictable and radical Shia leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, who has criticised the constitution but has not yet let on whether he will urge a yes or a no vote. Separate from the Sunni insurgency in the centre and west of Iraq, Mr Sadr’s Mahdi Army and other Shia militias continue to conduct a lower-level revolt in the British-run south. On Thursday Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, said that Iran may have supplied weaponry to a splinter group from Mr Sadr’s militia that has killed several British troops in recent attacks, though it was impossible to be certain. Iran’s government has denied involvement in the attacks.

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Shia-Kurdish ruling alliance, always fragile, is showing signs of strain, with a spokesman for one of the two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), calling for the sacking of the current prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shia. The PUK’s leader, Jalal Talabani, who is also Iraq’s president, later distanced himself from those calls, but it is plain that Iraq’s Kurdish politicians have little respect for the prime minister. They say his government has not fulfilled repeated promises to help those Kurds whom Saddam Hussein ethnically cleansed from the oil-rich province of Kirkuk to return home.

The Kurds’ antipathy to Mr Jaafari will probably not influence the constitutional referendum but might make it harder to form another unity government after the general election due in December. As the referendum draws near, Iraq’s parties seem increasingly prone to act only on behalf of their ethnic or sectarian base, and loth to make tactical concessions to maintain alliances.

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