Now it's up to them?
Iraq's new leaders need to show they are credible and can pave the way for democratic elections
BAGHDAD--The run-down Communist Party headquarters seems an unlikely place to be sowing the seeds of Iraqi democracy. But it is here, in an office decorated with a poster of Che Guevara and a life-size oil painting of Vladimir Lenin, that enthusiastic party boss Hamid Majid Mousa has been coordinating with a United Nations team on plans for national elections early next year. "The U.N. team are really experts," says Mousa, a former member of the Governing Council, as he shows off a draft timeline for the next critical steps in Iraq's evolution. But other card-carrying Communists have doubts. "We've been dreaming about elections for years," says Ashar Hamdan, 61, editor of the party's newspaper. "But since we are practicing democracy for the first time, there will be mistakes and chaos."
Already, chaos poses a fundamental challenge to democratic aspirations. Even as the interim government was being sworn in last week, a car bomb nearby killed three Iraqis and injured 27 in front of the headquarters of a Kurdish political party. Candidates out mixing it up with crowds? Hardly likely in a country where bombs and bandits make for deadly road travel and most homes are stocked with a Kalashnikov. And putting in place the basic requirements for elections will not be easy. "There's been no preparation for any sort of census or registering voters, and there is no security to do so. The corruption is high, and you can't depend on an Iraqi institution to do it," says Adnan Ali, a close aide to the newly appointed Iraqi deputy president, Ibrahim Jafari. "We have difficulty approving an interim government; how are we going to have elections in six months?"
The U.N. is at least planning to try. Last week, an eight-member electoral commission was formed, consisting of Iraqi lawyers, human-rights activists, and other nonpoliticos selected and vetted by a U.N. electoral assistance team from nearly 2,000 applicants. Both the United States and the U.N. have a lot riding on Iraq's holding elections to establish a national assembly and government by the target date of Jan. 31, 2005.
For that, much rests on the credibility and performance of the new interim government, whose chief job is to get the country to elections. It is a body crafted to balance the country's rival Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. Ghazi Yawar, a Sunni from a major Iraqi tribe, is president, a largely ceremonial position. Prime Minister Ayad Allawi is a Shiite, favored by Washington because of CIA ties going back to his days as an anti-Saddam Hussein exile. The Kurds, who had feared getting shortchanged, made out well with several prominent cabinet posts, including deputy prime minister. Among the 26 men and six women in the cabinet are scientists, technocrats, and five members who served on the now dissolved Governing Council.
Notably left out: former Bush administration favorite Ahmad Chalabi and members of his Iraqi National Congress, which received more than $33 million in U.S. funding for its anti-Saddam efforts and for now discredited intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In the latest allegations, Chalabi, once envisioned as Washington's man to lead Iraq, is suspected of leaking key U.S. secrets to Iran. Chalabi, and his Washington lawyers, vehemently deny allegations that he tipped off Iran that the United States had broken the codes used by Iranian intelligence agents--which would be a major U.S. intelligence setback in tracking Iranian support for terrorism and its suspected efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.
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