Iraqi elections - worrying results

Brother None

Brother None

This ghoul has seen it all
Orderite
I hate being right on stuff like this.

Ok, so now the dust settled and ignoring American papers and picking up a Dutch one, one that was very fanatic about the elections just after they were done, by the way, we get to the following results:

Turn-out: 58%
Results:
United Araqi Alliance: 48.2%
Kurdic Alliance: 25.7%
List Allawi (INA): 13.8%
List Ghazi Al Yawar: 1.8%
Turkmenian party: 1.1%
Elite Independant List: 0.8%
Communists: 0.8%
Other: 7.8%

(yes, the final turnout turned to be 58%, not exactly the 72% people were hollering, huh?)

This means 133/275 seats for the Shiites through the UAA and 71 seats for the Kurds. 38 seats for Allawi (also a Shia). A handful of seats for the Sunnites (Sunnis?), to which the papers adds this note (the 20 procent = around 36% according to the CIA world factbook, but everyone keeps saying 20, so hey):

Turnout amongst Sunnites, constituting 20 procent of the population which had control of the country under Saddam Hussein, was extremely low. In the province Anbar, a Sunni centre, the turnout was 2 procent. The most important Sunni representative in parliament will be the party of the current Iraqi president Ghazi al-Yawar, who will most likely get 5 seats. The secular party of the Sunni leader Adnan Pacachi has probably not attained the minimum amount of votes
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This is trouble. Local Iraqi authorities have states they are worried that the results will lead to a new wave of violence. Two employees of Allawi were found dead on sunday in Bagdad, where on the same day two Iraqi officers were killed by rebels. 17 Iraqi military men were killed in the North on Sunday, 18 people were killed by a suicide bomber on Saturday.

Thursday the borders of Iraq close in preparation of the feast of Ashura, a Shia celebration where they remember the death of Hussein, grandson of Muhammed. Last year 171 people died in attacks surrounding the Ashura. We'll see how many this time...

And now for the needlessely optimistic American report, which glosses over the whole Sunni thing! Yay!

slightly better one on Boston.com
 
I think your concerns are justified Kharn, but until the new government is up and asserting its authority I hesitate to judge it. If the new government is inclusive and sufficiently secular it is possible that the Sunni's will, if not oppose it, at least find it legitimate. If OTOH they pursue a policy of shiite religious views and narrow self interest prepare then prepare for a full scale civil and regional war:

Kurdistan declares independence, inciting Turkey to invade.
Shiites call for aid, enlisting Iranian support.
Syria acts as an entry point for foreign jihadists.
Saudi Arabia falls under its own incompetence and external pressure.
Oil prices skyrocket as OPEC implodes.
Western (and Eastern) economies intervene.
General Jihad is declared by and for Moslems against the crusaders
Al Qaeda gets what it wants.

And all because of Shrub and his neocons. Fun stuff eh?
 
Murdoch said:
I think your concerns are justified Kharn, but until the new government is up and asserting its authority I hesitate to judge it. If the new government is inclusive and sufficiently secular it is possible that the Sunni's will, if not oppose it, at least find it legitimate.
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Not to complain to much but to be fully inclusive, i.e. to include Sunnis in the government, wouldn't that be opposed to the popular vote and thus kind of defeat the purpose of democracy in this case?
 
I don't follow. If everyone voted selfishly for their own party of religious identity then its not very democratic at all. Just a government representing the will of the various religious groups without encompassing the needs different socio-economic strata, which is what I suppose most western governements really do.

Anyways, since the Sunnis didn't/couldn't vote the government is not representing a large part of the population, leading to questions of legitimacy. Taken for the moment as fact, then the only way the militant Sunnis may do what the government asks is if the government accomodates them. If it doesn't (or the parliament isn't artifically skewed to represent the Sunnis) then the above series of events is possible.
 
Strictly speaking, by democratic standards, if people want to vote according to religious beliefs and not "good of the country", that's their choice. It's then the government's task to implement this within the limits of a (for Iraq currently non-existent) constitution.

Iraq *is* a country where most parties, except the seculars (communists etc., hardly got any attention did they?), are divided by religious belief. Whether or not they will then accomodate the loser religious minorities remains to be seen, but if they're going to do that to the level that will most likely be requiered, I doubt it'd be very democratic anymore.

Confusing, innit?

This is one of the reasons I keep insisting our form of democracy won't work in a country like Iraq.
 
Well, is there a way that a country ruled by competing relgions can be democratic in the western sense of the word? Or is there a need for a new word, not quite democratic, not quite theocratic, which would define a middle eastern representative government's role and responsibility?
 
Democracy in the Western sense of the word only includes modern, representative, everybody-can-vote, liberal democracies. Heck, by some people's standards even the USA shouldn't be included in that list.

And yes, I do think one of the lead requirements of democracy, even if you won't accept the need for a "liberal background" (i.e. Enlightenment, Christianity, all that hooha), is that the country is unified in every important sense of the word (which doesn't include so much splitting people (races, sexes) by law, but more important heavy splits made by uncrossable boundaries like religious splits).

Heck, we tried it for Ireland, didn't we? Look where that's gotten us.
 
Murdoch said:
I don't follow. If everyone voted selfishly for their own party of religious identity then its not very democratic at all. Just a government representing the will of the various religious groups without encompassing the needs different socio-economic strata, which is what I suppose most western governements really do.
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Great comment. I agree completely.

Nice debate. I also dont find Murdoch's guide to the possible events unrealistic since they are in fact shockingly true. At some point the Kurd's will have their own nation. When? Who knows...but with Iraq in turmoil now is a great time to grab for it.

I suppose only a high amount of state's rights (do they call them provinces?) could allow the Sunni's some security in a Shi'ite nation. Of course when that power is left to the federal government it often isnt allowed.

Sincerely,
The Vault Dweller
 
I am leaning for Kharn here. A democratic system would allow for folks to vote based on religious values. The issue is whether secular values, and that would include the belief that your state should be free of religious factionalism, have become imbedded in a culture and are so appreciated that people vote based on secular beliefs and not just religious convictions.

If you've noticed, the number of attacks on Shi
ite targets has increased. I think a bakery and mosque got hit yesterday. The reason might just be to inflame a factional war between Sunni and Shi'ites. Similar practices occurred in Lebanon in the 1980s before that country went into civil war.
 
Why do you think this is strictly a religious problem? It's much more a problem of opposing social views. Communism and Fascism clashed hard in the 1930s as well, and that went wrong in Germany. This has nothing to do with the fact that they're religious, but the fact that their views are opposed and they see eachother as completely different parts of society, not as two co-operating constituents of one society, which is probably one thing that is needed for democracy to succeed (either that or the awareness that if you don't accept the result, then the entire system collapses).

P.S.: I'm going to kill the first person who replies to this with a remark about seperation of church and state.
 
welsh said:
I am leaning for Kharn here. A democratic system would allow for folks to vote based on religious values. The issue is whether secular values, and that would include the belief that your state should be free of religious factionalism, have become imbedded in a culture and are so appreciated that people vote based on secular beliefs and not just religious convictions.
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Aye, that brings up the interesting question of post-WW II pre-80's Holland, though, when the Netherlands was still segmented according to religions, and Catholics voted for the Catholics party, Protestants for the Protestant party and Socialists for the Socialist party. It's true, there was a strict social seperation and people voted according to it.

I guess the difference is nobody in Holland was willing to kill each other over those different views back then, even if you weren't allowed to marry someone from another "segment" of society, heh. Even more funny is the fact that we DO seem to be willing to kill each other in these more unsegmented times.

Anyway I think it's a pretty set conclusion that the aformentioned conditions don't exist in Iraq, hence I complain again.

Sander said:
Why do you think this is strictly a religious problem? It's much more a problem of opposing social views. Communism and Fascism clashed hard in the 1930s as well, and that went wrong in Germany. This has nothing to do with the fact that they're religious, but the fact that their views are opposed and they see eachother as completely different parts of society, not as two co-operating constituents of one society, which is probably one thing that is needed for democracy to succeed (either that or the awareness that if you don't accept the result, then the entire system collapses).
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Maybe because the three factions are all religious factions?

Duh.

The Vault Dweller said:
I suppose only a high amount of state's rights (do they call them provinces?) could allow the Sunni's some security in a Shi'ite nation. Of course when that power is left to the federal government it often isnt allowed.
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Provinces, not States. States is almost strictly a US thing, along with other united countries (UAE, Micronesia, etc.)

That said, this is an interesting point. The United States as an economically largely fractionised country, with farmers in the South and workers up North, devised the Senate system first to ensure no discrimination towards new states as the US expanded (a brilliant move I still say)...

But more importantly right now, the Senate serves to off-balance Congress (and the President), to serve as a roadblock every time Congress, with the majority-vote being non-farmer, tries to fuck over the farmers of the South with some bill. Why exactly positive racism in the form of more voting power should then be applied to the South is an open question, but I guess the dual explanation of "we need food" and "we don't want civil war" applies.

I guess the same is true for Iraq

PS: notice how the removal of the concept "1 person 1 vote" from the American electoral system makes it inherently non-liberal (and no, not liberal in the raped sense that the USA/UK/Canada keep using it, I mean liberal as in "freedom"-ish)
 
Kharn said:
Maybe because the two factions are religious factions?

Duh.
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Sander said:
Why do you think this is strictly a religious problem?
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It's being treated as some kind of general problem inherent to a system with two religious parties, completely disregarding the fact that this isn't just religion.
 
THey aren't simply Religious boundaries, though. The Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites are ethnically different. To us it may not be a big deal, but those living in the region (and anal retentives) would be quick to point out the differences between Arabs (Sunnis) and Persians (Shi'ites).

Of course, Ayatohlla Al-Sistani's party did earn 48% of the votes, so perhaps this is a religious issue? Then again, who better to promote Shi'ite interests than the man who represented them throughout Saddam's rule?
 
Sander said:
It's being treated as some kind of general problem inherent to a system with two religious parties, completely disregarding the fact that this isn't just religion.
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That's about as irrelevant a remark as I could've conjured up in 100 years time. Congratulations.

Bradylama said:
THey aren't simply Religious boundaries, though. The Kurds, Sunnis, and Shi'ites are ethnically different. To us it may not be a big deal, but those living in the region (and anal retentives) would be quick to point out the differences between Arabs (Sunnis) and Persians (Shi'ites).
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Look, I'm sorry guys but this is a different debate. We're talking about problems here that are the result of a country split in three. Whether it be religion, social standpoints or ethnicities really isn't all that relevant at this point. Besides which, it's all three and a discussion of which one is most important is not what we're doing here.
 
Regardless, INSANE as this may sound, I'm still not too worried about the election results.

Sistani and the Kurds want a Civil War about as much as we do. I doubt they'll make any attempts at squashing the Sunni's opportunity for representation for the sake of national stability.

Whether or not this translates into legislature based on Islamic law, I couldn't really care less. So long as the new government doesn't price oil in Euros.
 
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