WHY IRAQ HAS NO GOVERNMENT YET: THE HAGGLING CONTINUES

Is Iraq to be centralised or federal?

 Artículo de  “The Economist” del 10-3-05

 

Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)

WEAK states have sometimes to make compromises with their far-flung provinces, a fact that many Iraqis, accustomed to ruthless centralised leadership, find difficult to accept. An instance of this was provided in the way that the Iraqi government managed to end Baghdad's three-month petrol crisis. The shortage was largely caused by smuggling and sabotage. The oil ministry says it solved the problem by hiring truckers from Bayji, a northern oil-refining town described as a “den of insurgents and smugglers”. Somehow, the Bayjians seem to get the petrol through.

The same point helps to explain why, six weeks after the election on January 30th, the country's main political factions have not yet been able to form a government. The problems go back to the American-supervised drafting of the country's interim constitution, the Transitional Administrative Law, or TAL.

At that time, nearly a year ago, the Kurdish parties insisted on strong language guaranteeing regional autonomy, including the right of any three provinces to veto the adoption of a more permanent constitution. The Shia parties resisted these demands. The Kurds were furious. Explain to your constituents, they said, that we have enjoyed de facto independence for a decade. Our people will not accept being part of your country unless you can guarantee that you will not try to dominate us.

However, for many Shias, including the country's most influential cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, regional autonomy was a reversal of democratic principles. How, they asked, can a minority impose its will on a majority? Some Shia clerics were also hesitant about the TAL's language on Islam, identified as “a source” but not “the main source” of legislation. Although they grudgingly approved the TAL, some have since signalled that they might not accept this occupation-era document once a genuinely elected government takes power.

The Shia parties, which won 140 seats in the 275-member parliament, will certainly dominate the sovereign government now being formed, but they will almost certainly need the support of the Kurds, who hold 77 seats, to get the two-thirds majority needed to appoint a prime minister and cabinet. The Kurds know that they may never again have as much leverage as they have now. So, in return for their support, they are insisting that the Shia leaders guarantee in writing that the new government will continue to respect the TAL, which gives the Kurds the right to run their own security forces, and insists on the return of Kurdish refugees to Kirkuk. The secular-leaning Kurds also want to make sure that the government sticks to the TAL's language on religion.

The Shias are balking. Mr Sistani is said to be so incensed at the Kurds' stubbornness that he is pressing Shia leaders to try and do without them and instead cobble together an alliance with the current prime minister, Iyad Allawi, and the Sunnis. This, however, is an unlikely scenario.

Kurdish officials are fond of telling interim government ministers that their authority does not extend beyond Baghdad's northern suburbs. Far more sensible, they argue, to formalise Iraq's disjointedness through federalism than to pretend it is a centralised state. At any rate, if Baghdad is to rule Iraq, it will have, it now seems, to cut deals with provincial bigwigs, be they Kurds or Bayji tribesmen.