Looming Sectarian Split

By Dan Murphy, Christian Science Monitor. Posted January 5, 2005.

Iman Abit al-Wahid is so afraid that she pulled her oldest daughter out of medical school and sent her son to a rural village for safety. Hassan Kazal Omran says many stores stopped distributing voter registration cards after death threats were slipped under their doors. Ahmed al-Mashdany says the whole thing is fixed and will taint everyone associated with it.

In the Sunni Arab communities of Iraq there seem to be as many reasons – fear, anger, confusion – to plan to stay away from the polls as there are people. The message is clear. While many Sunnis say they'd like to vote in the election scheduled for Jan. 30, most say they probably won't.

With growing tension between Iraq's majority Shiites and the Sunni Arab minority who have always dominated the country's government, low Sunni participation come election day is likely to further divide, rather than unite, Iraq's two most important constituencies. Further division, in the worst case, could nudge Iraq closer to civil war.

The leading Sunni political parties are now positioning themselves to reject the vote and its consequence – the writing of a new constitution – as unfair. If there is high turnout among the country's Shiites, as expected, that assembly will be packed with Shiite politicians who suffered mightily under Saddam Hussein's Sunni regime and could write a constitution that emphasizes majority rights at the expense of minorities.

Many worry this could lead to sectarian conflict. A largely Shiite government, vested with the sovereignty that an election lends, will be fighting a largely Sunni insurgency that has killed thousands of Iraqis in recent months.

"The Americans have set this up in such a way that a lot is at stake after this election,'' says Juan Cole, a professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Michigan. "If the Sunnis are grossly underrepresented in this constitutional constituent assembly, it will be set up for a guerrilla war that lasts for decades."

This week, violence has continued to sweep Iraq. On Tuesday, Baghdad Governor Ali al-Haidari was murdered with six of his bodyguards in Baghdad, and a suicide bombing at an Iraqi special forces post killed 10. Mr. Haidari was the highest ranking government official killed since May. On Monday, three suicide bombings killed 16 Iraqis.

The violence, and the likelihood that many Sunni Arabs won't vote, prompted Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan to tell reporters in Cairo that an election delay might be possible if the government grows convinced it will lead to more Sunni participation. Iraq's independent electoral commission, however, said a delay is not being considered.

A delay would also carry risks, since it could prompt anger and violence among Shiites, who expect the election to be their path to power.

Average Iraqis of all stripes say they just want peace. But for many Sunnis – racked by doubts about the fairness of the process and intimidated by extremists who have threatened death to voters – voting itself seems too high a price to pay.

"I was mugged in front of my house just two weeks ago. Kidnapping has gotten worse and worse and I'm afraid to even open my front door now,'' says Mrs. Wahid, a math teacher and mother of three. "How am I going to feel safe going to vote?"

Wahid says she's generally apolitical and she wants honest leaders to come to power who can restore order. But because of the recent violence she can't imagine feeling safe enough to go to the polls in less than a month's time.

In addition to fear, confusion reigns for many. The biggest Shiite electoral list, the United Iraqi Alliance organized by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country's top Shiite cleric, is backed by large numbers of Shiites simply because they trust Sistani. There is no Sunni corollary.

Dan Murphy is a staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

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