THEY, THE PEOPLE:

It'll soon be time, at last, to vote: Though the election will be boycotted by many or even most Sunni Arabs, it should still offer Kurds and Shia Arabs a rare chance to choose their own leaders (The Economist, 1/13/05)

AT LEAST in those parts of Iraq where the insurgents do not dominate, the election campaign has begun in earnest. Posters plaster the walls, at any rate in the Shia and Kurdish areas that contain a good three-quarters of the country's people. And though full lists of candidates' names are hard to find—and in some cases have yet to be drawn up (see our table)—Iraqis are gradually becoming aware of the main choices of party alliances and leaders on offer when some 5,500 polling stations open on January 30th. It is increasingly likely that turnout in the Sunni Arab areas, especially in the four out of 18 provinces most afflicted by the insurgency, will be dismally low. Nonetheless, most Kurds (who make up a fifth of the people) and Shias (some three-fifths) sound determined to vote. [...]

The outcome is highly unpredictable. The nearest thing to a certainty is that the Kurdistan Alliance, a joint list combining the Kurds' two main parties and a clutch of minnows, will sweep the Kurdish north-east—and may well give the Kurds a disproportionate number of seats since their turnout, in the safest part of Iraq, is likely to be the highest. Parties representing Iraq's Christians, Turkomen (ethnic Turks), Yazidis (who follow a creed close to a Roman-era cult) and other minorities may pick up a few seats: all a party needs, to win a seat in the 275-strong assembly, is 1/275th of the total vote.

The main battle, however, is being waged between the Alliance (widely known as “the Shia house” or “the clerics' list”) and Mr Allawi's lot. A few weeks ago, it was assumed that the Alliance would gobble up most of the Shia vote. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shia cleric, had played a notable part in creating the Alliance. Mr Allawi's allies, however, point out that Mr Sistani has not explicitly endorsed it, and they have fiercely attacked the Alliance's adherents for—allegedly—telling Shia voters that they have a religious obligation to vote for it.

By contrast, campaigners for Mr Allawi's Iraqi List are promoting his personality, lauding a reputation for toughness that is said to appeal to Iraqis fed up with the violence and strife. This seems to be going down better than expected. Preliminary results of an opinion poll in Baghdad and the Shia south found that 22% may vote for Mr Allawi's group versus 27% for the Alliance. Mr Allawi did even better as an individual, polling at 35% against 11% for his closest competitor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari of the Dawa Party, probably the Alliance's strongest component. [...]

So Mr Allawi, the Kurds and the Alliance look likely to split the lion's share of seats. Until a few weeks ago, Mr Allawi seemed to have a good chance of staying on as prime minister, largely because he lacked a base of his own and seemed not to threaten the main Kurdish and Islamist-minded Shia parties. But now that he may be emerging as a force in his own right, the Alliance may feel it should press for a prime ministerial candidate of its own: perhaps Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who is close to Mr Sistani, or the finance minister, Adel Abd al-Mahdi.

Iraq's Arab, Turkish and Iranian neighbours all seem minded to give the emerging assembly and the government it endorses a chance to establish itself.

The neighboring states have more interest in stability than we do.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 17, 2005 9:04 AM