The Iraqi Government is Divided on Secretarian Lines Because Iraq is Divided on Secretarian Lines
Former Prime Minister Allawi is back at it, proposing an electoral reform for Iraq:
I propose that a new electoral law be devised to move Iraq toward a completely district-based electoral system, like the American Congress, or a “mixed party list” system like that in Germany, in which some representatives are directly elected and other seats are allotted based on the parties’ overall showing. In either case, the candidates must be announced well in advance of the election, and they must be chosen to represent the people in their locality.
Furthermore, a new law should ban the use of religious symbols and rhetoric by candidates and parties — these have no place in democratic elections. In order to prevent interference from militias and to ensure transparency, the United Nations must supervise all these elections district by district. And these reforms should be supplemented by other preconditions of national reconciliation, like general amnesty to all those who have not engaged in terrorism.
Allawi thinks that religious symbolism and appeals can somehow be banned in Iraq, which seems to be slightly unmanageable when the two most important popular figures — Sistani and al-Sadr — are both clerics. It’s not religion, per se, that’s dividing Iraq, it’s the existence of seperate bases of power. Does Allawi really think the voters that supported religious Shia parties won’t be able to discern the religious identity of a parliamentary candidate standing for election in their region? What Allawi probably really wants be banning religious symbolism is to create the conditions so that he – a secular Shiite – can be elected. Not only is this an anti-democratic and ill-fated powergrab, it just won’t work.
But there’s a more basic problem; the reason Iraq is stricken with secretarian strife is beause there are distinct groups fighting for power within Iraq. And as slow motion ethnic clensing makes Shia and Sunni populations more and more homogenous in certain regions of the country, it’s highly dubious that regionally representative elections will unify the country. If a certain region is homogenously religious Shia, they will elect the same SCIRI or Sadrite that they would have supported under a closed party list system.
Again, the reason the Iraqi government has secretarian division is because Iraq is divided on secretarian lines. Any government selected through even quasi-representative means will reflect this fact. It can’t just be wished away or erased by procedural tinkering.
