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| Iraq in Perspective: from Occupation to Self-Determination |
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Indeed, there are doubts as to how many actually participated in the election. How the US authorities were able to say 8.5 million out of 14 million eligible Iraqis took part, just one day after the vote and before a single ballot paper had been counted remains a mystery. As does the US-installed Independent Election Commission’s precise pre-election prediction of the turnout. The figure of 14 million would per se appear to be misleading, because it only refers to Iraqis registered to vote, not the 18 million eligible voters of an indigenous population of 25.8 million.iv Indeed, the claim of high voter participation among Iraqi exiles is also misleading. Although some 1.2 million people were qualified to register and vote, only 280,000 were registered and less than 25% voted.v Muhammad al-Kubaysi of the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the highest Sunni religious authority, speaking to Aljazeera in respect of the low turnout said that some 80% of Iraqis living abroad in complete safety refused to register their names, and this was not due to a security problem, but rather “a growing Iraqi awareness that these elections are indeed an American and not Iraqi (sic) initiative”.vi The AMS in fact strongly challenged British and US claims that the election was a success, placing the turnout at no more than 30%.
Interestingly, reports suggest that some of those who did attend did not necessarily do so because they wished to embrace democracy but rather they were forced to because the choice was between voting or losing their food ration cards.vi Others allegedly had been paid bribes and trucked by US forces to voting stations to be greeted by waiting mainstream media.vii Some participated because they wanted to be part of an electoral process that had been absent from Iraq's political life and others because of nationalistic sentiments. However, it would seem that the vast majority of eligible Iraqis, both Shiite and Sunni, abstained because they viewed the election as having been coordinated by the occupying powers and designed solely to serve their interests. This would not be an entirely ill-conceived perception when considering the fact that the election was arranged under an electoral law and by an electoral commission installed and backed by the occupying power. In fact, it took place under the draft constitution known as the ‘Transitional Administrative Law’ (TAL) drawn up by US Civil Administrator, Paul Bremer and based on the ‘intended direction’ of the Bush administration.ix It remains the ‘supreme law of the land’ which ensures, for instance, that the former Coalition Provisional Authority’s (CPA) neo-liberal economic measures, which open the country up to foreign investment, stay in place as does the right of multinational forces to retain command over Iraqi forces x - the vast majority of whom still remain untrained, contrary to the assurances of the occupying powers. This means of course that the new government will have to enforce its will at the barrel of an American gun, which speaks volumes about the de facto sovereign powers of the Transition National Assembly (TNA), or the powers any future Iraqi government is likely to have under military occupation.
Although in theory the TNA can amend or repeal laws enacted by the CPA, the TAL makes it incredibly difficult to do so because any amendments to it can only be passed with a three-quarters majority of the National Assembly, as well as the unanimous support of the Presidential Council, which will be difficult to achieve. Without an overall majority, the Iraqi Alliance is now dependent upon the support of other parties to change the current constitution or indeed unpopular laws enacted by the CPA. It will certainly be too weak to take steps to end the occupation, something which hard-line secularists such as Ayad Allawi and the Kurdish Alliance would oppose them on. In actual fact, contrary to the West’s alleged fears that Iraq will now follow in the footsteps of Tehran’s theocracy, one would not be surprised if the final approved constitution were to resemble those of Gulf States whose constitutions are a concoction of Islam and democracy, in which Islam remains ‘a source’ and not the sole source of law.
This result is guaranteed by the inclusion of religious leaders like Grand Ayatollah Sistani who, because of their theological views, have detached themselves from politics. Moreover, parties that seek a purely Islamic State that will represent the political will of a predominantly Muslim nation have been excluded from the entire political process.
Clearly, the occupying forces have designed the mechanisms of these elections and this negates any idea of Iraqis achieving self-determination through them. Establishing a constitution is the sovereign right of the people and is the first act of self-determination, which precedes plebiscites. It cannot be drafted and imposed on a people and legitimised through elections as popular will. Clearly, the oft-stated US intention for the ‘Iraqis to govern their own affairs’ amounts to no more than the right of Iraqis to choose representatives within a Western political and economic framework. It is inconceivable, therefore, that the new constitution will be any different from the TAL, which is of course intended to serve as a blueprint for the permanent constitution. This form of external interference with the right of peoples in a sovereign state to draft their own constitution and proceed to elections appears to be consistent with the US international objective of spreading political and economic freedom by inter alia ‘opening societies and building the infrastructure of democracy’.xi
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