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| Author: | Lionel Beehner |
|---|
February 13, 2006
Iraqi leaders continue to hash out a four-year coalition government after the December 15 parliamentary elections. As the country’s three main ethnic groups vie for cabinet positions, there are concerns that the Shiites—who won most of the parliamentary seats—may shut out Sunni Arabs from the more prominent positions in the new government, especially the ministries of the interior, defense, and oil. On February 12, the Shiite bloc voted to keep Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister, running the risk of alienating Kurds and Sunnis, many of whom find Jaafari a divisive figure. Given the high stakes and horse trading ahead, experts predict it will be several months before the government will be up and running.
The United Iraqi Alliance (UIA)—the ruling Shiite bloc dominated by Islamist parties with close ties to Iran—won 130 seats, the most of any political list, in the parliamentary elections. The Kurdish Alliance tallied fifty-three seats, while Sunni-led parties won fifty-five seats. The major Shiite and Kurdish lists fell three seats shy of the two-thirds majority required to control parliament and select a presidential council. Therefore, the two camps must form a coalition with one of the smaller secular or Sunni political blocs. U.S. officials are privately pushing for greater Sunni political participation as part of efforts to form a government more representative of Iraq’s religious and ethnic makeup, diversify its heavily Shiite security forces, and squash the Sunni-led insurgency.
The allotment of ministries is still a few weeks, if not months, away. Sunnis, given their representation in parliament, are expected to take more portfolios than the eight they currently hold under the interim government. Still, the breakdown of the cabinet does not necessarily have to reflect the composition of parliament. Experts say the most powerful and sought-after portfolios are the ministries of interior, defense, and oil, followed by the ministries of finance and foreign affairs. It’s unclear which political groups will control which ministry, but the issues and candidates at stake include:
Political parties affiliated with Moqtada al-Sadr, the young extremist Shiite cleric, won thirty-two of the UIA’s 130 seats for parliament, a gain of 50 percent from their earlier parliamentary representation. That should increase the influence of Moqtada al-Sadr on Iraqi politics (Sadr is believed to have been behind the selection of Jaafari for prime minister). Still, Sadr’s followers are not a unified camp, experts say. In general, Katzman says, “he will want to shift the whole UIA bloc toward a less cooperative stance with the United States and pressure us to draw down our forces and start clearing out.” Further, Sadr is less concerned with issues of federalism and less pro-Iranian than SCIRI. His platform appeals more to younger, poorer Shiites from Sadr City, a Baghdad slum named for Moqtada’s late father, Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Najaf, a predominantly Shiite city about 100 miles south of Baghdad. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Sadrists are expected to pick up two more portfolios in the future government—most likely the ministries of education and housing—to add to the three ministries they already control: health, transportation, and civil affairs. “The health ministry serves half a million people a day. The transportation ministry serves 200,000 to 300,000 people,” Hazem al-Arraji, a top Sadrist cleric, recently told the Monitor. “But what does the foreign or interior ministry do for poor Iraqis? These ministries are under the control of the occupation; we have no use for them.”
Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, will mostly likely remain president, experts say. He has complained of his lack of authority and called for additional executive powers, which cannot happen without a constitutional amendment. Besides choosing the prime minister, the president holds a largely ceremonial position in Iraq. Yet the presidency is a potent symbol, as well as a powerful position from which to influence the country’s politics. Some experts say Talabani has not delivered on enough promises for the Kurds. “A lot of Kurds, especially Talabani’s base, the PUK [Patriotic Union of Kurdistan], are worried he is spending too much time in Baghdad playing Arab politics rather than worrying about the Kurdish area and how to secure that,” Katzman says, adding that the presidency may go to a Sunni leader as well. “It would allow Sunnis to say they are no longer humiliated and no longer third-class citizens,” he says.
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