On the road to a new democracy?
For a day, hope overcame fear. Now, Iraqis ponder the consequences of their votes
The question of Sunni participation remains unanswered. Shiite leaders were quick to make appropriately conciliatory noises about courting the disgruntled Sunni community, but their intention to put a more strongly Shiite religious stamp on the next government lurked just below the surface. "The prime minister is not going to represent the sect he comes from--he's going to represent Iraq," says current Vice President Ibrahim Jafari, a leading Shiite candidate to become prime minister. "We must think about which Shiite prime minister will be accepted by the Sunni community."
Jafari ran as part of a slate, known popularly as number 169, that included the nation's two most influential Shiite parties and was blessed by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the most influential Shiite cleric in Iraq. Early returns showed his religious slate with a commanding lead, and in an interview after the election, Jafari carefully noted that because of their victorious turnout, they should claim the seat of power: "The Iraqi people must feel that we will not put aside whom they elected. The Iraqi people overcame the threat and voted, and we must tell them, 'You will not be neglected.' "
The real cracks could emerge when the new assembly meets to appoint a new government--consisting of a president and two deputies and a prime minister--in what will be a convoluted backroom process of wheeling and dealing to divvy up the spots between the winning slates of candidates. Shiite politicians from the two main religious parties will work to agree on who among them will take the influential prime minister job. If they fail, Iyad Allawi, the tough-guy interim prime minister and American favorite, might retain the post. The presidency, now in Sunni hands, could well go to the Kurds, leaving Sunnis angling for a fourth spot, the speaker of the assembly, a somewhat symbolic consolation prize being sold as offering Sunnis a much-needed "bully pulpit."
Bumpy ride. The assembly's most difficult task, however, will be to draft a new permanent constitution. This, too, will be a bruising process, in which Iraqis will address all the toughest issues they so far have sidestepped, such as the degree of Kurdish autonomy. The constitution, due in mid-August, will be an unprecedented test of Iraqi politicians' ability to compromise, in effect, to knit together rival Shiites and Sunnis, Arabs and Kurds. "If it's successful, nobody will get what they want. The only successful constitution is one in which everybody gets a little bit less than their maximum and decides it's good enough," says a senior U.S. Embassy official. "This is the core issue of whether the Iraqis can live with each other. I expect this next year to be a very bumpy ride with lots of crises."
For its part, the U.S. government is moving quietly to set out political markers. President Bush made clear in his State of the Union address that he will not commit to a withdrawal timetable for American troops. Officials said troops would leave if told to do so by a new Iraqi government, but that was largely a feint since the administration is confident that leaders will need security help from American forces. And U.S. officials in Baghdad said they are prepared to play diplomatic hardball--including the threat to withhold billions in promised reconstruction aid--to ensure that Iraq's political newbies stick to the game plan for a democratic, pluralistic, federalist, and unified state. "The Iraqis are free to choose whatever vision of Iraq they want. That's entirely up to them," says a diplomat in Baghdad. "It's entirely up to us, the United States, who we choose to support. We can use these funds elsewhere."
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