Beyond the bullets, a new constitution is the crucial issue for this democracy

Jonathan Steele in Basra
Monday January 31, 2005
The Guardian

Whoever wins yesterday's election, the crucial issue for Iraq over the coming months - apart from the future of the insurgency and whether foreign troops give a timetable for leaving - will be the process of writing Iraq's first democratic constitution.

The 275 members chosen yesterday for the national assembly will be in charge of the process. Will the new constitution enshrine Sharia law? Will it protect women's property and divorce rights? Will it maintain the system of federalism that was written into Iraq's temporary constitution by the Americans a year ago? If it does not, will this provoke the Kurds in northern Iraq to break away?

The assembly also has the task of appointing a three-person presidency, which will pick the prime minister.

If last night's early indications of strong support for the incumbent, Ayad Allawi, in the largely Shia southern provinces is confirmed in Baghdad and even those Sunni areas which voted, he will be assured of staying in the job. He took a certain risk in standing on his own ticket rather than seeking to ally himself to the Kurds and Shias with whom he is in coalition in the present government.

But he decided to put his own reputation to the test, a gamble which appears to have paid off. He had the advantage of incumbency and in recent days many Iraqis interviewed by reporters praised him for raising pensions and salaries for teachers and other government workers as well as the police.

In a country of huge unemployment this classic populism may have been as significant as his image as a "strong leader for a safe country", as his campaign slogan put it. The prime minister was also helped by huge name-recognition in a field where most candidates had little chance or time to get themselves known, especially in conditions of heavy insecurity which made campaigning almost impossible everywhere outside the Kurdish areas and a few cities in the Shia south.

Television coverage became the crucial weapon. Mr Allawi was constantly in the news, and he also dominated the paid advertising on the satellite channels. What funding he had from US sources, official or unofficial, is not clear but he is certainly Washington's favourite.

Even if the Shia religious parties were to get more seats than Mr Allawi in the assembly, they would probably help to keep him in power as a gesture to the Americans. Mr Allawi is a Shia so from that point of view he is acceptable to the Shia clerics. None of the big religious parties is in a mood to confront the Americans. The best-known radical Shia, Moqtada al-Sadr, was not running.

The issue of Shia dominance can be exaggerated. They are the biggest population group in Iraq but it does not follow that they would want to enforce a Shia line even if there were one. They are deeply split. It is mainly a matter of symbolism to have a Shia prime minister after decades of rule by leaders from the Sunni minority, whether it was the king imposed by the British or, later, Saddam Hussein.

The real issue among the Shias, and it is shared by Sunni moderates, is whether religious or secular politicians get their values enshrined in the new constitution. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most respected Shia cleric, certainly sets more store on getting the right constitution than on who forms the government.

So the next Iraqi government is likely to be similar to the present coalition of religious and secular groups, heavily dominated by former exiles. Under the temporary constitution the prime minister picks the cabinet, which is then approved by the assembly.

It may not be clear for a day or two what proportion of seats the Sunnis will get. Because turnouts will have been lower than in Shia and Kurdish areas, they are likely to be under-represented in the assembly. Yesterday's vote was on a simple system of proportional representation with the whole of Iraq treated as a single constituency.

Since the assembly oversees the writing of the constitution, and does not do it itself, there is scope for making up the "Sunni deficit" by appointing Sunnis to the drafting committee. If ignored, they have a potential veto. The constitution is to be put to a referendum in the autumn. If more than a third of voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces vote it down, the draft falls. Since Sunnis form a majority in at least four provinces, this gives the drafters a considerable incentive to take Sunni interests into account.

The big unknown is what effect yesterday's successful vote has on the insurgency. President George Bush warned Americans recently that it will probably get stronger. There is a paradox. In as much as yesterday's election gives greater legitimacy to the next Iraqi government, since it will have been elected by Iraqis rather than appointed by Americans, it also subtracts from the right of foreign troops to remain in Iraq.

The two issues are not in direct inverse proportion to each other but there can be less justification for such a pervasive presence of foreign troops in a country which has voted to put its own people in charge of government.

The pressure will be on the Americans to speed up the training of Iraqi forces and start the process of handing security responsibilities over to them under a clear and public timetable.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1402235,00.html