lundi 30 novembre 2009

Electoral law: the Sunni veto

The electoral law for Iraq's national election has still not yet been approved. As a result the vote, originally scheduled in january, will have to be reported, possibly in mid-march.
The delay is the result of a veto from vice-president al-Hashimi. After weeks of difficult negotiations at the Baghdad parliament, the law was at last drafted, but was immediately contested by the Sunni vice-president. According to him, the refugees, mainly Sunni, living in Jordan and Syria were not given a fair representation in the new parliament.

The Sunni Arabs were the dominating force in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's regime, but lost their power after the 2003 American invasion. They fear to be further marginalised in the new parliament.
A first version of the law was adopted the 08/11/2009. A delicate matter was the repartition of 48 additional seats, supposed to reflect the population growth since the previous 2005 elections. The Nineveh province, where Kurds and Sunnis are competing for control, was to be given 13 new seats, to reach a total of 31. By contrast the total of seats in autonomous Kurdistan would have amounted to 38. The Kurds threatened to boycott the elections if the system of attribution of the new parliamentary seats was not modified, and as a result a second version of the electoral law was voted on the 25/11/2009. In it, the seats previously given to the Sunni Arabs are de facto re-attributed to the Kurds. It caused the Sunni Arab parliamentaries to refuse to attend the vote, and the law was passed with only 152 parliamentaries present on the 275 the assembly has.
The Eid celebration put the dispute on hold, providing a respite used for further negotiations before the Baghdad parliament to re-open.

It remains that the Sunnis appear to be used as a barrage to Kurdish ambitions. The Nineveh province is one of the disputed areas, that the Kurds want to see integrated to their autonomous region. The provincial council there is dominated by al-Hadba, a formation born after the 2005 elections, which gained a lot of support with an anti-Kurdish agenda. Resolutely nationalist, it supports a strong central state and so would have been very useful to oppose the project of a federal state the Kurds want to push forward, would have the number of representatives the electoral law was originally giving Nineveh been approved. Its leadership includes several Iraqi army former high-ranking officers linked to the Baath party. Kurdish peshmergas and security forces faithful to the al-Hadba governor are facing each other in the volatile province, a hotbed of insurgents.
Of some concerns as well are the comments of Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, a leader of the al-Sahwa militia. In an apparent reaction to the electoral law passed the 25/11/2009 at Baghdad's assembly, amended to respond to Kurds' demands, he accused them to be the cause of Iraq's nowadays problems. The campaigns waged against them by the successive Iraqi regimes have been caused, he said, by their permanent efforts to undermine Iraq's unity.
Al-Sahwa is a 95000-strong force of Sunnis, most of them former insurgents the Americans turned as pro-governmental militias. 20% are supposed to be, at term, integrated in the security forces, while the others are to be reinserted in the civilian society, but their fate is still uncertain.

Would they be used to oppose Kurdish claims on the disputed areas?
The question can be asked. Sheikh Risha accuses the Kurds of trying to steal Kirkuk, and so once again the problem returns to the disputed city. Kurds were chased from it by Saddam Hussein, who replaced them by Arab settlers. The Kurds came back in the wake of the Americans in 2003 and are now claiming the town as theirs. They demand a census and a referendum to be held, as stated in the constitution, to decide of the town's integration in their autonomous region. They face strong opposition from Arabs and Turkmens, who are denouncing the mass return of Kurd refugees in Kirkuk as an attempt to make it a Kurd colony.
In this perspective the Sunnis are becoming valuable auxiliaries for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who refuses to let Kirkuk escape the control of the Baghdad government and made no mystery of his plans to change the constitution and establish a strong central state.

Anyway the electoral law issue is not solved yet. Tariq al-Hashimi may use his veto once again. Wranglings have been going during all the Eid period; they include interventions from the USA and the United Nations, who are pressing the different sides to reach an agreement. Joe Biden, the american vice-president, spent the weekend phoning the key protagonists, showing how important were the elections for the USA. It led Ammar al-Hakim, head of the powerful Shia Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, to warn yesterday against any foreign interference into the political process. The consensus, he said, had to be made for the benefit of the Iraqi people, not to comply to the agenda of a foreign power.

vendredi 27 novembre 2009

Goran members defect to the PUK

"A group of 400 cadres and members of Change List from Koya area announced on november 22, 2009 their stances to return back to the lines of the PUK"
"This came during a mass meeting held in the presence of Bahran Saed Sofi PUK leadership member, the head and administrative staff of PUK organisational centre in Koya in addition to some PUK officials who received the returned cadres" (PUKmedia, 25/11/2009)

"A group of 500 cadres and members of Change List from Sulaimani province announced on november 26 their stances to return back to the lines of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan"
"This came during a meeting held in the presence of Mr Shaho representative of Mam Jalal Talabani and some PUK officials who received the returned cadres" (PUKmedia, 26/11/2009)

These kind of press releases on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's online information website started to appear several weeks ago.
The Change List, it is Goran, the new opposition party which made surprising gains during the july provincial elections, especially in PUK's Sulaimaniya stronghold. Its leadership is largely coming from a PUK reformist wing, tired of the party's rampant cronyism. For Kurdistan is divided in two fiefdoms, one under control of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, the other under the one of the PUK, in which those two parties are controlling everything: the administration belongs to them, as well as the exploitation of resources, the distribution of amenities or else. They so allocate posts, decide of the public projects, following the interests of the party - and those of its leaders...
It is in denouncing this situation that Goran attracted the votes of a dissatisfied population. Lifelong PUK supporters casted their votes for Goran, including public sector workers who owed their position to their party affiliation.

As a result, immediately after the elections, close to 2000 of those public sector workers lost their jobs. It didn't prevent, anyway, discontent to grow against the PUK, whose popularity continues to decline. There is a serious risk to see Goran gain even more support in the national elections originally scheduled for january 2010.
Anxious to regain its power, the PUK leadership so staged mass meeting in which Goran members renounce their new loyalty to come back to the Patriotic Union. The frequency of the PUKmedia reports of these defections increases as we come closer to the elections, as well as the number of "cadres", "members" of Goran returning to the party line. If they were only 100 at a meeting held at the beginning of november, they were 200 at Bitwen the 21/11/2009, and 250 the following day at the PUK's Social Affairs offices in Zakho.
Safin Mala Qara, Goran representative in Erbil and himself former senior member in the PUK, explained that a lot of the defectors were people who were expecting Goran to act as the PUK does, and so provide them with posts and advantages. Once they realised Goran would not reproduce the patronage system it denounces, did he explain in an interview with KNN TV, they went back to the PUK.
Amongst those people are as well some of the teachers, police officers, sacked after the july elections for having supported Goran. The PUK recontacted them and promised to give them back their former jobs, provided they would publicly abjure.
To provide always more participants, it is alleged that some of them went to several meetings, and that at one opportunity the personnel from an administrative office were instructed to attend. Is it true?
The theatralisation of those events and their authoritarian nature, reported by PUKmedia in its inimitable Soviet press-like style, led Shaho Saed, a Goran MP at the autonomous Kurdistan assembly, to say that the repentants are treated as war prisoners surrendering.

In a funny parallel, PUKmedia, during the past week reported the events beside the information "President Barzani pardons 250 prisoners"...

jeudi 26 novembre 2009

The electoral law under criticism.

Sunday 22/11/2009 the electoral law for Iraq's january election has been voted in Baghdad's parliament. It was the second time the law was passed at the assembly. Adopted a first time on the 08, it came immediately under fierce criticism.
The number of representatives is to raise from 275 to 323; to decide how to distribute the new seats, the Iraqi High Electoral Commission relied on the ration cards statistics issued by the Ministry of Trade. But due to the movements of population caused by sectarian violence and political unrest, and the rampant corruption, the accuracy of these records is highly questionable - and so is their use as a reference to decide how to allocate parliamentary seats.
On the 48 additional seats, only three were to be given to the Kurd provinces, so reducing their representation in the parliament. The news sparkled outrage in Kurdistan. Massoud Barzani, president of the autonomous Kurdistan region, declared on the 17 that would the law not be modified, the Kurds would not take part in the elections.

For a reduced representation very likely means the end of the Kurds' demands on Kirkuk.
The city lies outside the boundaries of the autonomous Kurdistan, but is claimed by the Kurds as theirs. an article of the Iraqi constitution, article 140, is all about it. It states that a census, followed by a referendum, will decide of the fate of the city. But the implementation of the article is endlessly reported, and the more they wait, the less likely are the Kurds to ever gain control of the town.

But, finally, the mode of repartition of the new parliamentary seats was modified. Based on the food ration statistics from 2005, a growth ratio of + 2,8% will be added, to have an estimate of the population.
This new development was described as a victory by the Kurd parliamentaries in Baghdad as well as by the Kurdistan authorities. But it was immediately denounced by the former speaker of the Kurdistan assembly, Jawar Namiq. He said in an interview with Rudaw on the 24 that the additional seats distribution, on which attention was focused, was of menial interest and that far from achieving a victory the Kurd parliamentaries in Baghdad failed to address the actual problem, the parts of the electoral law about the vote in Kirkuk.
The way to deal with the highly disputed city, where are concentrated the conflicting interests of Kurds, arabs, Turkmens and others, led to the vote of the law to be reported countless times until a compromised was agreed. For it's what the electoral law is, a compromise opening the doors to any controversy, which had to be adopted because the parliament was reaching the deadline.
It says that the vote will be carried, but that the results won't be definitive before one year. In the interview he gave, Jawar Namiq says other parliamentary blocs in Baghdad will perceive the acceptation of the conditions on Kirkuk as a mark of weakness from the Kurdistan Alliance, representing the interests of Kurdistan in Baghdad. He asserts that the Kurdistan had the power to oppose these conditions and should have done so. Of interest is as well the fact that once again ration cards statistics will be used. It puts in evidence the reluctance of the autorities to carry a census, highly contentious, and likely to provoke unrest in the disputed territories of Kirkuk and its likes, where rival factions are ready to move thousands of people to artificially shift the demographic balance in their favour.

Anyway the vote of the electoral law on the 22/11/2009 is far from being a success. On 275 Iraqi parliamentaries, only 152 attended the vote. The Sunni parliamentaries boycotted the vote to protest against the number of seats given to the refugees - mainly Sunni - living outside Iraq in Syria or Jordan. As well, the law must now be approved by the presidential council, composed of the Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and two vice-presidents. One of them, Tariq al-Hashemi, vetoed the law.
His veto can be overturned by a new vote, requiring a 60% majority, at Baghdad's parliament.
A new round of negociations, agreements, arm-twistings, enticements, and interventions from US officials is so open.

samedi 21 novembre 2009

Electoral law - a parliamentarian Anfal?

"In the 80s we had Anfal in the mountains. Now it is in the Ministry of Trade." Those words by Shaho Saed, a representative of the Kurd opposition party Goran at Erbil's regional assembly on the 18/11/2009, give an idea of the anger in Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan.
Anfal is the series of military campaigns Saddam Hussein launched against the Kurds in the 80s. Thousands of villages were destroyed, their population sent in hostage camps. It culminated with nerve gas attacks on Halabja town in 1988.
In cause is the electoral law for the january election. It was voted the sunday 08/11/2009 after weeks of wranglings, missed deadlines, to be finally pushed through the Iraqi parliament under heavy pressure from the USA. Public interventions from US forces in Iraq, general Odierno, an high-profile visit from vice-president Joe Biden, finally resulted in the law being adopted by 141 of the 195 lawmakers present, out of the 275 the Baghdad parliament has, a number of them not attending in a way of protest. So crucial are these elections for the Obama administration that the US ambassador Christopher Hill allegedly ordered some delegates he found outside the assembly chamber to go to vote. But the relief the international community expressed immediatly was short lived. The Sunni vice-president al-Hashemi vetoed the law, making doubtfull that the elections could be held before the end of january deadline.

According to al-Hashemi the law denies Iraqi refugees living in Syria or Jordan to be fairly represented. But the Kurds, in their autonomous enclave in Northern Iraq, feel directly threatened by this law as well.
From 275, the number of representatives must raise to 323. To decide how to allocate the new seats, the Iraqi High Electoral Commission took the statistics used by the Ministry of Trade to issue food rations. It appears to the Kurds as a blatant attempt to marginalise them. Some Kurd families didn't apply for ration cards and so are not registered in the Ministry of Trade statistics. More, the different factions inside Iraq engineered after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime huge movements of population to alter the balance of power or challenge the presence of other groups. There is as well the black market around the ration cards, complicating the guesswork. Rather than giving accurate numbers, Ministry of Trade datas are so biaised. They give the Kurds only three new seats, while Nineveh province, where some Arab Sunni parties won a large audience in stirring anti-Kurdish resentment, will receive 13 new seats, to reach a total of 31. The total number of seats for the Kurds will amount at 38, or 12% at the new parliament, when they represent 17% of the Iraqi population.
That's what prompted Shaho Saed to compare the use of the ministry's records in the electoral law to an attempt to eliminate the Kurds from the Baghdad assembly, similar to the Anfal campaign.

For in the parliament to come, the Kurds' influence will be diluted, undermining their efforts to have the contentious article 140 implemented.
This article of the Iraqi constitution proposes a roadmap to solve the issue of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Originally a Kurd city, it has been arabised by the successive Iraqi regimes, eager to keep its strategic assets in the hands of the central government. The article proposes a census, followed by a referendum, to decide if the city will go under control of the Kurdistan Regional Government. But the application of article 140 is endlessly reported - the referendum was supposed to take place before the end of 2007. It is a serious issue. The weeks of delays before the 08/11/2009 vote were caused by a dispute around the town. The Arabs and Turkmens, fearing to be marginalised if Kirkuk comes under KRG administration, wanted to have the electoral law taking the 2005 voters lists as references - when Kurds didn't massively come back yet. The Kurds wanted the voters lists to reflect the present population, which advantages them. In its present form, the electoral law doesn't solve anything about the how must be conducted the vote in Kirkuk anyway. It reports the problem, saying that while the 2009 register will be adopted, the results of the vote will be open to contestation during one year. The purpose of this provision is obviously to have the vote taking place in january at any costs, regardless of the multiplicating problems it is sure to bring.
And the Kurds feel that the more they wait, the less likely they are to gain control of the town. They fear to have the situation of non-resolution becoming an accepted one, and so to see Kirkuk escaping them. How to have the article 140 implemented with a diminished representation in Baghdad? And how to oppose, then, amendments of the constitution which would delete the project of a federal state for a strong central government favoured by Nouri al-Malik?

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan region, said tuesday 17/11/2009 that unless the electoral law was deeply modified, the Kurds would not take part to the january election, depriving it to any legitimity.
Now, saturday 21, Iraqi lawmakers are meeting again to try to bypass vice-president veto, and have the national elections taking place in january. But for the Kurds, the issue remains.