Iraq faces crash course in democracy

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Ronald St. John, a political consultant with the International Republican Institute, recently asked some college students in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to define “democracy.” One student stuck up his hand and answered: “Democracy means you can disobey laws you don’t agree with.”

Iraqis have a lot to learn about democracy and not much time to learn it.

Six months from now, on Jan. 2, Iraqis who had been under dictatorship for decades and governed by U.S. authorities since April 2003 are to vote in genuine national elections. The 275-member Transitional National Assembly will replace the interim government that took over from the U.S. occupation authorities Monday, two days ahead of schedule.

The election of the National Assembly – which will write the Iraqi Constitution – would be a milestone on the way to President Bush’s goal of spurring democracy in Iraq and having it spread across the Middle East.

But the way is perilous and may not end the way the United States hopes. Among the pitfalls:

• Violence could prompt the interim government to call off or delay the elections, although interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said Monday “the Iraqi government is determined to go ahead with elections on Jan. 2 of next year.”

• Candidates may be targeted for assassination by those who oppose a democratic government, dissuading moderates from running.

• Iraqis may be too afraid to vote if voting could get them killed, or they may not see the benefit. Low turnout could mean less of a mandate for the new government.

• The country’s ethnic minorities may say the vote is illegitimate if they gain few seats.

• Regional powers, such as Iran, could seek to influence the elections for their own gain.

“The challenges are enormous,” says Carina Perelli, a United Nations expert who is advising Iraqis on how to conduct their elections.

Perelli, who spent several weeks in Iraq this year, says she is confident most Iraqis look forward to the chance to elect those who govern them. “There is a solid majority more than eager to express their opinions if only they have a channel and they are certain there is not going to be retribution,” she said.

But at a recent briefing to the United Nations, Perelli warned that continuing violence is a threat. “You need to have a great improvement in the situation to be able to conduct the elections.”

Politics disdained

Political organizations in Iraq have long been viewed with disdain by a population abused by Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. Iraqis have little or no experience with the nitty-gritty of electoral politics.

Imad Jasim, a political organizer with the Iraqi Independent Democrats, visited Karbala in the south of Baghdad last week to fire up party staffers and get them working on a local campaign platform.

“They all laughed and said, ‘What do you mean?’ I realized there was a gap” in knowledge about how electoral politics work, says Jasim, who lived in exile in London before the fall of Saddam.

Fielding candidates, devising political platforms, forming coalitions and learning to accept defeat and behave constructively in opposition are alien concepts to Iraq. For decades, all Iraqis knew were the sham elections of Saddam.

In 1987, the dictator got 100 percent of the vote, and in 2002, when he submitted himself to a yes-or-no vote without an opponent, he got 99.9 percent. Karim Keshash al-Khazali, 47, a former Baathist who worked as an election observer under Saddam, found 19 “no” votes among the 1,000 ballots he counted on election night 2002. “It was a celebration more than it was an election,” says al-Khazali, now a taxi driver.

Political campaigning can be lethal in a country where car bombings, assassinations and other terror attacks are regular events. As the U.S. military tries to crush the militants and terrorists responsible, it also will provide security for members of the interim government with the assistance of Iraqi police and security forces.

The reliability of those Iraqi forces is uncertain.

Hundreds of Iraqi soldiers and officers are being trained and deployed every week by coalition members and others to keep the peace. Anthony Cordesman, a Middle East expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington., says it’s uncertain that these forces can restore order. “One way or another, this government has to become legitimate,” he says.

One way may be martial law – or something like it. In an interview with CBS Saturday, Allawi said the government needs to “take actions and measures against criminals, apprehend them, question them … and impose curfews,” Allawi said. “It wouldn’t be martial law.”

However, an election held under such circumstances could be viewed as unfree and illegitimate. “I hear increasingly from Iraqis that the interim government sees itself as far from interim,” says Michael Rubin, an Iraq expert at the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin worked for the now-dissolved Coalition Provisonal Authority.

If Iraqis are not able to freely choose their leaders, Rubin says, it could be seen as a betrayal akin to the U.S. decision in 1991 to evict Iraq from Kuwait but leave Saddam in place. It would also thwart the Bush administration’s plan to leave behind in Iraq a model to inspire change in Arab dictatorships.

Then there is the risk that an election will divide the country rather than unite it behind a new leadership. “A Kurd will give a vote to a Kurd, an Arab to an Arab, a Shiite to a Shiite,” says Ayad al-Samarie, assistant secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which represents the country’s Sunni Muslim minority.

Iraqis back democracy

There are some grounds for optimism. A survey earlier this year of 3,200 Iraqis by Oxford Research International, a British research firm, found that 90 percent of Iraqis want democracy. And, in a finding that suggests a democratic Iraq might not divide along ethnic or religious lines, 86 percent said they believe the Iraqi government should represent all the major groups in society.

To help ensure Iraqis see their election as legitimate, the United Nations helped create an independent, seven-member election committee to oversee the process. The CPA and United Nations also have banned parties associated with armed militias from participating in the election - but they admit it will be almost impossible to enforce.

The CPA recently gave the election committee the power to disqualify parties and candidates. But some Iraqi political aspirants say those powers are too broad. There is talk of trying to revoke those powers after the hand-over of sovereignty.

Despite flaws, analysts and politicians say there’s no way to devise a perfect plan for elections.

“The most important thing is to start, and we have started,” says Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Daawa Party official and an interim vice president.

Voting for a slate

Voters will not vote for individual candidates. They will vote for a slate, or list of candidates, put together by the political parties they represent. That will make candidates less visible and therefore less likely to be targeted for assassination, the United Nations says.

Rubin say the plan is a mistake.

“The party-slate system is more vulnerable to outside interference than constituency elections,” he says. “It’s easier for the Iranians to pump money into a national party slate than it is for them to fund 275 different candidates.”

But the biggest concern all around appears to be violence and intimidation.

Nine Communist Party workers have been slain in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad. A Daawa Party leaderwas killed by a car bomb in Baghdad in May. Allawi has been threatened with death.

“If security does not improve, it is going to be impossible to hold free and fair elections,” says Larry Diamond, a Stanford University expert on emerging democracies. “Yet postponing the elections beyond . . . would also risk a political blowup. We are really in a race against time.”