The Iraq Elections: A repeat performance

The elections were dominated by calls for a boycott, religious edicts prohibiting voting, accusations of foreign meddling and a dominating foreign superpower.

Much though it may sound like Iraq in 2005, it was also the state of the country from the 1920s to 1958.

Sunday's vote has been painted as Iraq's introduction to democracy, but elections were held under British control as well. Some older Iraqis may have even participated in the 1954 elections, considered relatively free by some historians.

The majority of Iraq's previous parliamentary elections would not, however, have passed today's western standards, and regardless of how fair the polls might have been, there was no hope for a true representative democracy in a country controlled by Britain.

"The historical memory [Iraqis] have of democracy is of weak governments that were beholden to the British," said Vali Nasr, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

"Once there were elections, the British tried to get the governments that they would like ... and that ended up completely destroying democracy in Iraq."

Britain gained control of Iraq from the Ottoman empire during the first world war, but limited resources and a violent Iraqi revolt in 1920 eventually pushed London into allowing the League of Nations to grant Iraq independence in 1932.

Britain, however, retained de facto control over the country.

"When General [Stanley] Maude went in, he said he was coming to liberate Iraqis, just like us [the US]," said Phebe Marr, author of a book on Iraq who describes the country in the 1920s as "much more chaotic" than it is today.

The first election under the British was "very difficult to get going", Ms Marr said, noting that a 1923 poll to pick representatives to write a constitution was similar to Sunday's vote for a constitutional assembly.

Elections under the British eventually became "more orderly", she said, but they ran into many of the same problems the US is now facing.

As early as 1922, Shia clerics issued fatwas, or religious decrees, declaring participation illegal, according to Orit Bashkin, a professor of modern Middle Eastern studies at the University of Chicago. That opposition made it impossible to have elections in the holy Shia city of Kerbala that year, she said.

Eighty years later, some clerics - this time Sunni instead of Shia - have issued similar fatwas against Sunday's election, and much attention will be focused on the Sunni turnout.

A high Sunni turnout would repudiate the insurgents' boycott calls, while low turnout could damage the new government's legitimacy. Some are even concerned that Sunni non-participation could push the country towards civil war.

The Shias have learned their lesson from the 1920s, according to Ms Marr. After they boycotted the 1922 vote and led rebellions against the British, the British cracked down on them, prompting prominent Shia leaders to flee to Iran.

"The people in parliament who held their noses and cooperated with the British were the Sunnis," Ms Marr said. "The Shia are not going to make the mistake again of boycotting ... and finding themselves out of power."

Previous efforts at Iraqi democracy were also hampered by manipulating British "advisers", domineering landlords and tribal leaders.

"If you were a political party, you would persuade tribal sheikhs and landowners to join you, and they then marched their people to the polls or made up the results," said Roger Owen, a professor of Middle East history at Harvard University.

Eventually the facade cracked. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Iraqi communist and social democratic parties accused the government of "having a fake democracy", according to Ms Bashkin.

There was one high point in the early 1950s, when there was a "lively political life" at the time, including a "very free election" in June 1954 when opposition parties gained seats in parliament, Ms Marr said.

But the success was quickly curtailed. The new parliament was dissolved after it held its first session and the government cracked down on the opposition to pave the way for Iraq to join Turkey in the anti-Soviet alliance known as the Baghdad Pact.

Britain bargained with kings and parliaments throughout its rule to retain control, but growing Iraqi nationalism slowly eroded London's power. British control ended in 1958 when military officers orchestrated a coup and killed the last royal family of Iraq.

A decade of turmoil and coups ensued until the Ba'ath party seized control in 1968.

Ms Bashkin said a popular phrase under British control was "al-watha al-shadh" or "perplexing predicament" referring to the idea that Iraq was "ruled by a local government, and also a foreign government".

"I think something similar is going on now," she said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1400949,00.html