Hijacking Democracy in Iraq

The official results of the Jan. 30, 2005 elections are in. The Shi'a emerged as the big winners, grabbing 48 percent of the vote, followed by the Kurds who garnered 26 percent, and Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's coalition party netting a paltry 13 percent. Behind the scenes political infighting rages as the victorious political parties vie to get their candidates positioned in the new government. On the surface, this looks like the sometimes messy aftermath of democracy; squabbling, rhetoric, and posturing. The Iraqi elections have been embraced almost universally as a great victory for the forces of democracy, not only in Iraq, but throughout the entire Middle East. The fact, however, is that the Iraqi elections weren't about the free election of a government reflecting the will of the Iraqi people, but the carefully engineered selection of a government that would behave in a manner dictated by the United States. In Iraq, democracy was hijacked by the Americans.

Elections have been used in the past to cover up inherently non-democratic processes. Stalin had elections, as did Hitler. So did Saddam Hussein. The Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Ba'athist Iraq were not burgeoning democracies, but totalitarian dictatorships. The point here is that elections don't bring democracy. The roots of any democracy lie in a people united in their desire to govern in accordance with a rule of law that guarantees the rights of all. Such people then create conditions in which elections can certify their desire by selecting those who will govern. This produces democracy. What occurred in Iraq on Jan. 30, 2005 was anything but such an expression of Iraqi national unity.

The Iraqi election was an American-brokered event: the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority set the terms of the election, and its date (not sooner than Dec. 31, 2004, but no later than Jan. 30, 2005) in its 'Law number 92,' signed into effect by former CPA chief Paul Bremer on May 31, 2004. The U.S. then had this act certified a week later by the Security Council of the United Nations, which passed resolution 1546, a Chapter VII resolution which carries the weight of international law and which endorsed the U.S.-dictated timetable for elections.

'Law number 92' is part of a larger body of Iraqi law, known as the 'Transitional Administrative Law', or TAL. The TAL was approved by the Interim Iraqi Governing Council on March 1, 2004; on June 1, the IIGC voted on an Annex to the TAL which certified as law all of the CPA's laws, regulations, orders and directives, regardless of the TAL. Iraq today is still governed under these conditions, which provide the U.S. occupiers in Iraq de facto control over what happens behind the scenes in the Iraqi Government. Iraq's 'democratic' elections were held under these conditions.

The main objective of the Iraqi election was to elect a national assembly which would then draft a new constitution by August 2005. This new constitution will be brought up to the national assembly for vote on Oct. 15, 2005. If the constitution is adopted, the new parliamentary elections would be held in December 2005 based on this constitution. If the constitution is rejected, then there will be a new national assembly election (a repeat performance of the Jan. 30 vote), and Iraqis will have another year to sort out their constitutional crisis.

Iraq's future rests on this issue of a new constitution. And herein lies the rub. It is the fervent wish of the Bush administration, and its ally, interim Prime Minister Alawi, that the new National Assembly rubber stamp the interim constitution that is already in place. This constitution contains language which precludes Iraq from becoming an Islamic Republic like Iran, where religious law (i.e., the Shar'ia), versus secular law, reigns supreme. Iraq's Shi'a majority have rejected this notion, and as such will not support the constitution as it currently exists.