Democracy denied in Iraq
Check out the new element near the top of the sidebar on the JWN front page.
It's about a week since I started getting very curious as to why the actual implementation of the people's will , as expressed in the late-January election, was taking so long to get implemented.
Now, I'm even curiouser.
(Regarding that counter on the sidebar, I haven't figured out how to get it to update itself automatically, so I counted until tomorrow, Thursday. If anyone knows how to get it to update automatically, could you post some suitable HTML code or links to same in the comments? Thanks!)
Nobody else seems to have noticed this yet.
This is the kind of thing that makes me come back to this site every blogging day.
Thank you Helena.
Coming from a country with coalition governments; our record number of days between elections and the forming of a government is 121 days (1956)...
I would think the reason that there is no government in place is that negotiations have broken down between the UIA and the Kurds over the issue of Kirkuk. The Kurds, I believe, are demanding full cession of Kirkuk and its oilfields as the price of supporting the UIA alliance into government. This another mess created by Bremer and co. The barrier of 66% support for forming a government was placed too high (is there 66% support for governments in the west?), and it is proving impossible to form a government. It looks like next week the UIA is going to call the assembly without having formed a government. we may see the curious spectacle of an assembly acting without a government. You will remember that only a simple majority (which the UIA have all alone) is necessary for the passage of laws and decisions. Allawi may remain formally in place but hamstrung. I don't know enough about the constitutional details to know whether it would be possible to pass changes to this interim constitution to make it more workable, under these bizarre circulmstances
I agree with Alastair. It's OK to put a high threshold for constitutional changes, but it's way to high when it comes to form a government. I wonder how many countries have such a high exigence ?
I think that the US is playing a dividing game there, pushing the Kurds instead of moderating their requests. It's not a case that the Turks ave protested in Washington aobut it. The US is apparently terribly afraid of Al Jaafari : how would they look if they toppled Saddam and allowed an Islamic state instead ? The deadlock will allow them to stay there indefinitely. Some army general has recently alluded a stay of at least ten years.
I agree with Alastair. It's OK to put a high threshold for constitutional changes, but it's way to high when it comes to form a government. I wonder how many countries have such a high exigence ?
I think that the US is playing a dividing game there, pushing the Kurds instead of moderating their requests. It's not a case that the Turks ave protested in Washington aobut it. The US is apparently terribly afraid of Al Jaafari : how would they look if they toppled Saddam and allowed an Islamic state instead ? The deadlock will allow them to stay there indefinitely. Some army general has recently alluded a stay of at least ten years.
Big thanks to west-coast contributor John who emailed me the Java script for the day-counter!
Good points, all above. Dutch-- I can imagine that your country can continue to function with an in-place, more-or-less accountable governance structure while those lengthy coalition talks continue. But in such an unsettled situation as Iraq... well, the possible implications are pretty scary.
Christiane, your point about the US policy re the Kurds is a v. good one. Members of the US policy elite (of both parties) have, in general, been much more attentive to the question of Kurdish rights than they have to the rights of members of the majority community in Iraq, i.e. the Shiite Arab community. But to put issues of minority rights before issues of the rights of the majority have even been addressed is, as I've always argued not only wrongheaded and putting the cart before the horse in terms of democratic theory-- bit also deeply divisive.
It's known as "divide and rule". Gosh, it's never happened before in the history of imperialism! (Not!)