Unwanted in power

After more than ten months since Iraqis cast their ballots in the parliamentary election a government could be in the process of formation. But, this will not be the government which was expected and not the government the majority of Iraqis want.

Last week, parliament met and elected Kurdish politician Abdel Latif Rashid as president and he promptly named Shia lawmaker Mohammad Shia al-Sudani prime minister designate. These appointments were a victory for the pro-Iran Shia Coordination Framework which formed a majority coalition after the resignation in June of deputies loyal to the independent nationalist Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. As the session convened, rockets struck the fortified Green Zone where parliament, government offices are located.

The selection of Sudani was a slap in the face of Sadr whose deputies stepped down ahead of a row over his appointment. He has long been an associate of ex-Premier Nouri al-Maliki who is Sadr’s arch enemy. Maliki was promoted as a compromise figure by the US as Iraq’s first fully-fledged prime minister during the occupation regime but set the country on a destructive course. He ushered in mismanagement and rampant corruption and discriminated against and persecuted Sunnis, some of whom responded by joining violent fundamentalist factions, including Daesh.

Sadr’s party with 73 out of 329 seats emerged as the largest in parliament and was first to attempt to form a government but failed. Sadr made two key tactical errors. He chose to align with the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), led by the Barzani clan, rather than the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the party of the Talabani clan. His choice of Kurdish partner gave the KDP the chance of securing the national presidency as well as the two top jobs in the Kurdish autonomous area. But, by accepting to pair with the Sadrists, the KDP broke an understanding that while it held the presidential and prime ministerial posts in the Kurdish region, the national presidency would be held by a figure from the PUK. It joined the Coordination Framework opposed to Sadr.

He chose the KDP for the practical reason that it had more seats than then PUK and he needed the seats for his coalition.  This sparked months of intra-Kurdish wrangling, delaying cabinet formation and deepening hostility between Sadr and the Coordination Framework. Sadr ordered his deputies to step down in June and their seats were taken up by candidates next on the electoral lists, many if not most are members or allies of the Coordination Framework.

Sadr responded by occupying parliament and staging demonstrations in Baghdad and the south but the street made no impact on developments. He has been excluded from governance at a time Iraq is in turmoil. The root cause of Iraq’s post-invasion troubles has been the US imposition of a ethno-sectarian regime on the country. This assigns the presidency to the Kurds, the prime ministry to Shias, and the speakership in parliament to Sunnis. Whoever in Washington took the decision to adopt this system should have taken as a warning the 1940s French adoption of a sectarian model for Lebanon which has suffered two civil wars since independence.

Sudani has 30 days to form a government. Some commentators argue he will also have to win support from figures connected with Sadr who has lost influence in parliament by pulling out his deputies. Furthermore, the Coordination Framework — which is largely composed of pro-Iran Shia militia commanders, will be loath to seek rapprochement with Sadr. He argues that the militias must be disbanded and Iraq freed from domination by both Iran and the US. But, he is in no position to achieve either of these objectives. In August, he announced his “final withdrawal” from politics but this is not taken seriously.

The difference between Sadr and the militia leaders is he remained in Iraq during the reign of President Saddam Hussein and the secular Baath party while the key militia leaders took refuge in Iran and remain close to Iran.

Sudani differs from them because, like Sadr, he remained in Iraq and is the first Iraqi politician to take office who stayed on and should be less beholden to Iran than the expatriots. In a bid to declare himself an “independent,” he resigned from the Dawa party which is headed by Maliki but this affiliation could create problems for Sudani.

The Sadrists concider Sudani to be “Maliki’s man” and expect Sudani to target Sadrist interests and influence in state insitutions and deny the Sadrists access to the resources of the state, Zeinab Shuker, associate professor at Sam Houston State University in the US, told Al-Jazeera.

While Sudani reportedly has a good record as provincial administrator and minister in two governments, he is seen as a status quo figure who cannot repair a broken state dependent on fickle oil revenues. He is not the man to oversee the transition Iraqis demand from the sectarian system to a secular democratic model free of external interference from Iran and the US. As the candidate of the Coordination Framework, Sudani is “Iran’s man.”  Furthermore, since the Biden administration has been totally preoccupied with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has reduced to a minimum US involvement in the affairs of this region, Iran has the upper hand in Iraq.

Sadr’s resort to the streets in recent months has been as fruitless as were the October 2019 protests against mismanagement, corruption and the sectarian system of governance. This system will hang on and stay on. Popular protests rarely achieve regime change although they may secure reforms. This is the case the world over — not just in Iraq or this region but also in the democratic countries of the West.

Millions of Britons massed in London and other British cities to protest against the Conservative government’s policy of withdrawing that country from the European Union but the Conservatives went ahead at great cost to the economy.  Millions have gathered across the US to protest against the abuse and killings of Black people, but violations of Black human rights continue on a daily basis. Protests against the prevelance of guns in civilian hands have made no impact on US legislators although the majority of citizens demand regulation of weaponry. In all but the most enlightened countries the demands of the people are sacrficed in order to benefit politicians and powerful interests.

Photo: AP