Iraq Election Results Point to a Big Win for Maliki

By Patrick Cockburn, Independent UK. Posted February 5, 2009.

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who seemed weak and isolated a year ago, appears to have won a sweeping victory in the Iraqi provincial elections that will strengthen his hold on central government. For the first time since the fall of Saddam Hussein, according to preliminary results, Iraqi voters chose secular and nationalist parties over their religious rivals.

Mr. Maliki's Dawa party is predicted to emerge at the top of the poll in Baghdad and Basra, Iraq's two largest cities, as well as in most of the overwhelmingly Shia south of Iraq. The largest Shia party, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), hitherto one of the main powerbrokers in the country, suffered heavy losses in all the provinces where it has been in charge for the past four years. "According to initial information, Maliki's list has come first in Basra with 50 per cent of the vote. Ours took 20 per cent," said Furat al-Sheraa, the head of ISCI in Basra.

The outcome of the election, which will probably be repeated in the parliamentary elections in December, marks a sea-change in Iraqi politics, with both the Shia and Sunni communities punishing the religious parties which flourished after the U.S. occupation in 2003. The results are a clear endorsement of Mr Maliki who has managed to displace the militia of the Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, negotiated the withdrawal of 142,000 U.S. troops during the next three years and confronted the Kurds. By stressing his nationalist credentials and success in improving security, Mr. Maliki has gained the allegiance of the majority Shia community.

The disillusionment with overtly religious parties among the Shia has been mirrored in the Sunni Arab community where the Iraqi Islamic Party had apparently been defeated by other Sunni parties in two Sunni bastions, Mosul in northern Iraq and Anbar province in the west. Many Iraqis blame the religious parties for fostering sectarian differences between Shia and Sunni and taking an active part in the sectarian civil war in 2005-7.

A further sign of a shift towards secularism and nationalism is that preliminary reports of the poll show that the former prime minister Iyad Allawi, whose party is overtly nationalist, has done well in both Sunni and Shia provinces in all parts of the country. In the last election in January 2005, Mr. Allawi, although Prime Minister at the time, did poorly despite being in control of the government.

Mr. Maliki has used his control of the state machinery to garner political support through patronage and subsidies. He funnelled money to tribal councils in southern Iraq in return for votes and used government-controlled media to support Dawa. But this would not have been enough to win the election so decisively if many Iraqis had not thought the Prime Minister was restoring order.

Mr. Maliki's success resembles that of Vladimir Putin when he was first elected Russian President by an overwhelming margin in 2000. Mr. Putin was seen as a strong nationalist who would end the chaos of the Yeltsin era after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Iraqis are likewise eager to see central government authority restored so they can have personal security, jobs, electricity and water. The Iraqi state is also similar to Russia in its reliance on oil revenues which pay the salaries of some two million government employees. The ability to dole out jobs to supporters will have played an important role in Mr. Maliki's success.

See more stories tagged with: shia, sunnis, baghdad, basra, nouri al-maliki, dawa party, iyad allawi, furat al-sheraa

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