Iraq's baby-steps to democracy

Last week, Iraq was thrusted into the limelight, attracting local, regional and international media attention due to two developments: Iraq's second landmark parliamentary elections under a less ubiquitous American occupation and greater ascendance of Iranian domination. Second, the movie Hurt Locker on the US war in Iraq came on top and won surprisingly more Oscars than expected, and more importantly, brought Iraq back to American attention. The movie made history by catapulting its director Kathryn Bigelow to crack Hollywood's glass ceiling, making her the first woman director to win an Oscar. This no doubt will bring Iraq back to the headlines after it became the forgotten war.

Former president George W. Bush and his neo-conservatives might take credit and argue they were right to launch their devastating war on Iraq, when they see those purple fingers and Iraqis braving courageously the bombings and violence to go out and line up to vote on the seventh anniversary of the Iraq war. Because the neo-conservatives launched the war in part to spread democracy and to rid Iraq, as president Bush remarked, of the tyrant. And moreover to make democracy ring from Tehran to Damascus as Paul Wolfowitz triumphantly bragged about in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. But their self-congratulatory mode should be damped, for the simple fact that Iraq has not emerged as the harbinger and model the Iraqis and the people and leaders of the region strive to emulate.

Iraqis — who have not been trained in and who did not practise participatory and accountability politics for generations, living in an absolute autocracy — have suddenly been immersed in voting in a fragmented society. Iraqis are exercising democratic practices and casting ballots without going through the pains and education of the baby-steps of democratic practices such as participatory politics, a culture of oversight checks and balances, in addition to an independent justice system and independent median and vibrant civil society where merits and competence, and not narrow affiliations, determine choices and outcomes.

In the last two elections, voting has been heavily influenced by sectarian, ethnic, tribal and regional affiliations. This proves that Iraq, with its imposed outside democracy, is far from being a democratic society. It is more in line of a democracy without democrats, as the famous book by Ghassan Salem postulates. It was even surprising to hear from the Iraqi foreign minister, who is a Kurdish candidate, to brag about the Iraqi democracy which Iraq's neighbours envy. It was one of those campaign claims which raised a lot of eyebrows in the region.

Iraqi elections took place after a two-month delay, with an uptick in violence and the controversy over the Accountability and Justice Commission seeking to bar as many as 500 candidates from taking part in the polls on the grounds of their earlier links with the Baath party.

The changes in this election were a stark difference from the previous parliamentary election in 2005. There was a slight shift in the Iraqi blocs from their heavy sectarian leanings. The lists were more open and inclusive, with a nationalist tone. The elections took place with an evidently ebbing American role in contrast to a dominant Iranian one. The Sunni Arabs who had boycotted the last election were active and participated heavily in this election.

Now with the election over, what's next? It was ironic that after the polls closed on March 7, the major blocs such as Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki's State of the Law Alliance and Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya movement declared early victory, with Allawi reiterating his fears and accusations of large-scale rigging of the results.

After almost a week, only limited results were announced by the election commission which validates the earlier speculation of regional trends and how the voters cast their ballots. Al Maliki's list was in the lead in the Shiite provinces like Babel and Najaf and the more secularist open list of Allawi's was leading in the Sunni and Anbar provinces such as Diyalah and Saladin. While in the Kurdish provinces, the Kurdistan alliance list was leading as expected.

It is evident that Iraqis voted across party, sectarian, ethnic and regional lines. Iraqis, by and large, as was expected, have voted for regionalism, sectarianism, tribalism and dependence on the foreign alliance and rejected voting for the national agenda, for their country and independence. This shows that Iraq has a long way to go down the road of participatory politics to create national representative, encompassing institutions.

Allawi has made strong accusations of rigging and sought the interference of the UN in order to guarantee a transparent monitoring and counting of the ballots. It goes without saying that none of the major blocs will be able to form the new cabinet on their own since none will garner more than one-third of the 325 parliament seats. At best, it will be a coalition government with an alliance between odd lists. This could give the smaller lists and blocs leverage and force the large blocs to compromise and even have a change at the top with a new prime minister.

It is clear that alliances, horse-trading tactics and gaming-out coalition scenarios will be at play. This means painstaking weeks or even months of attempting to form the new cabinet which could precipitate a power struggle and drag Iraq into a political and security vacuum. There is also fear, as a result of the alleged rigging of the polls, that the sore losers might resort to violence. This could precipitate a new cycle of bloodshed that could drag Iraq back into the abyss.

Horse-trading and jockeying have started. Public attention, as well as the attention of local, regional and US media is warily focused on Iraq again. During the wait for the results, many unanswered questions on where this landmark election would take Iraq and the region have cropped up. Iraq, which has weathered so many storms in the past, now stands at the crossroads. It will be a pity to squander the positives and revert to the days of lawlessness and chaos. Iraq has to succeed for its own sake and that of the region too.

Dr Abdullah Alshayji is chairman of the Political Science Department, Kuwait University.