Iraq Prepares For Sadrists To Take Over

Iraqis to vote for new parliament with dim hopes

 

Sunday, April 27, 2014
From Print Edition

Sadrists Prepare to Take Over

The vibrant posters promise jobs, prosperity and security coming from Iraq’s first parliamentary elections since US troops withdrew from the country, but so far, voters have only dim hopes as sectarian bloodshed rages unstopped.

Eleven years after the US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraqis live in a deeply divided country sinking back into a cycle of violence that claimed more than 8,800 lives last year alone.
Candidates largely campaign by smiling signs alone some women in conservative districts using only images of husbands or brothers as suicide bombers killed at least 33 people at a rare rally on Friday by a militant group fielding its own political hopefuls.

The resurgence of sectarian violence, which nearly tore Iraq apart in 2006 and 2007, is both a reflection of the 3-year-old conflict in neighbouring Syria and the politics of a democratic, but splintered nation. Voters in Wednesday’s polls are widely expected to cast ballots along sectarian and ethnic lines, though many say they have little hope the election will bring any real change.

“Iraqi politics needs new blood,” said Ammar Faleh, a 35-year-old government employee in Baghdad’s eastern Sadr City. “We don’t want the people who created our miseries to be re-elected. We want honest people who can fix the situation, not make it worse.”

More than 9,000 candidates are vying for 328 seats in parliament. As in the last round of nationwide elections in 2010, fierce intra-sectarian political rivalries have left members of the country’s majority community running on different tickets a shift from the 2006 elections when they formed a unified list with support from traditional religious authorities.

Whichever bloc comes out ahead will have a shot at cobbling together a coalition that will choose the prime minister, though many Iraqis expect that post could well remain in the hands of the man who has held it since 2006: Nouri al-Maliki.

However, the administration of Al-Maliki, 63, has been unable to stop the near-daily bloodshed on the country’s streets, while corruption permeates all levels of government.

Despite the unrest, al-Maliki is presenting himself as a strong leader who can defeat the insurgency that has come roaring back on his watch. One of his campaign posters shows him standing next to soldier with a slogan reading: “Together, we defeat terrorism.”

Experts predict al-Maliki’s State of Law coalition will gain the largest number of seats, given its emergence as the largest single bloc in seven of 12 provinces in last year’s provincial elections. But even if he secures the most seats, al-Maliki likely will need to work with opponents to build a coalition to form the next government.

His main rivals are the al-Muwatin coalition, led by powerful cleric Ammar al-Hakim, who heads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, as well as followers of the firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. The Sadrists are running on three separate lists, with the major one called al-Ahrar. A new political player running for seats this time around is the extremist Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or “the League of the Righteous.” Its followers carried out deadly attacks against US troops before their withdrawal and claimed responsibility for the 2007 kidnapping of a British contractor along with his four guards.

Their entry into the political process sparked new bloodshed Friday. A Sunni al-Qaeda breakaway group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, said its suicide bombers attacked Asaib Ahl al-Haq’s rally for some 10,000 followers on Friday, an assault that killed at least 33 people.

The Islamic State said on a militant website that the bombings were to avenge what it called the killing of Sunnis and their forced removal from their homes by militias.