Watching The Wheels Come Off - Iraq Parties Reject Election

Last Friday I was one of the first to predict that results in the Iraqi elections were not good news for anyone except the ruling Shia/Kurd coalition - a day or two ahead of the mainstream media. Now, everyone accepts that the governing Shia group, the United Iraqi Alliance, will gain somewhere in the region of 130 seats and their allies from the Kurdish Alliance will gain more than 40 seats. This puts them in the driving seat again - a total of 184 seats from a total of 230 is needed to pick the new President and ensure control of Prime Ministerial and ministerial positions.

It need hardly be repeated that this isn't good news for Bush's faux-plan. The Kurds want an independent Kurdish state and will happily use their peshmerga militia as terrorists in neighbouring Turkey, Syria and Iran. The UIA is almost wholely a political front for the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq which wants far closer ties with Iran, a loose federal structure that would allow Southern Iraq to be effectively autonomous and some of its hardliners would prefer to see Shiite Iraq become part of Iran entirely. Neither group wishes to share their oil wealth with the peoples, both Sunni and Shia, of central Iraq and appear to be in cahoots to the extent of trading cities - Baghdad for Kirkuk - in vote rigging at last week's elections.

But wait, it gets worse! The BBC is reporting today on a meeting, called by former prime minister Ayad Allawi, at which representatives from 35 parties issued a statement threatening to boycott the new parliament if their complaints were not properly investigated.

The Iraqi Accord Front was joined at the meeting in Baghdad's Green Zone by the other main Sunni bloc, Saleh al-Mutlak's Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, and former Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's secular Iraqi National List.

"We totally reject the results of these rigged elections and call for the cancellation of the early results," a joint statement issued by the parties said.

"We hold the IECI responsible for all the violations which took place during the elections and demand that it be dissolved and a suitable alternative to be found," it added.

"If this is not achieved, then we will have no choice but to refuse the results and boycott the new parliament."

Although Allawi himself did not attend the meeting (possibly through fear of assasination attempt) his spokesman called the elections "fraudulent, they are fraudulent, and the next parliament is illegitimate. We reject all this process." The Guardian also reports on the meeting, noting that the statement:

said the more than 1,250 complaints about fraud, ballot box stuffing and intimidation should be reviewed by international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of the Islamic Conference or the Arab League.

There was no one available for comment at the U.N. office in Baghdad.

The electoral commission, or IECI, that monitored the elections reported receiving more than 1,500 complaints of violations - of which 25 were described as serious. However, it does not expect the complaints to change the overall result, to be announced in January.

However, the electoral commission, which was established by the Coalition Provisional Authority under Paul Bremner and has had UN training, has a record of downplaying serious complaints already in both last January's elections and the constitutional referendum. No-one seriously expects the results to change majorly between now and the official declarations.

(I've been unable to find any reports at all which take a serious look at the makeup of the IECI - an incredible journalistic ommission - but it seems a safe assumption that it is stuffed with Kurds and Islamist Shia as they were the groups most involved in the political process at the time of its formation. If anyone has hard information on this it would be appreciated.)

None of this, of course, will have any impact on the Bush administration or its serious sycophants. To them, the appearance of an election is more important than the results of the election. Doubtless, they would have lauded the coming to power of Hitler - after all it was by an election that at least appeared democratic.

For the rest of us, The Times reports that Sunni politicians are making worrisome noises about returning to the insurgency.

Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of Tawafoq, claimed the election was rigged and demanded the poll be rerun in Baghdad, where the ruling Shia United Iraqi Alliance gained 59 per cent. “Such results are not in the interests of the Iraqi people,” said Mr Dulaimi. “This might lead to disturbing results for harmony all over Iraq.”

His fellow Sunni, Mukhlif al-Ulayan, thundered: “We will stand firm against this conspiracy. We will not allow the formation of a government or national assembly no matter how much it costs.”

Even some of those who have been wearing blinkers are beginning to realise all is not going well in Iraq. I noticed a few of the Pajamas Media crowd sound worried as they quote from Omar at "Iraq The Model" blog, one of their number. Omar has been pretty upbeat until now, but suddenly he says this:

Right now we’re in facing a big crisis that leaves us before two possibilities; either the Sunni agree to be part of the government and we get a parliament with 200 Islamist members (Sunni and She’at) in the face of 75 secular members, 50 of them are Kurds who won’t care much about this parliament or the rest of the country since they have their own parliament and government in Kurdistan (which is going to include Kirkuk in the near future of course).

Those 200 Islamists will just have to diminish the 25 liberal members and that’s not going to be difficult at all in four years, I mean one year was enough for the Islamists to burn offices, assassinate and intimidate the liberals and seculars.

The second possibility isn’t brighter than the first, probably the rival parties will enter another conflict in which words will not be the only weapon, we will also hear the democracy of mortars and RPGs speak loudly.

The blinkered Right then read reports such as those above, where even Allawi is joining the angry mob, and some rightly conclude that the second possibility is far more likely.

The wheels are coming off. Next stop is open civil war.