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News Analysis Iraq: Sistani stands firm on elections
December 3rd, 2003 -- Washington’s new plan for the devolution of power (MEI 713) has come slamming up against the opposition of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The plan — an agreement signed between Paul Bremer, representing the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, as the holder of the US-appointed Governing Council (IGC)’s rotating presidency — calls for an interim national assembly. Rather than be democratically elected, however, members would be selected by caucuses composed mainly of the municipal and provincial councils assembled by US military commanders through a variety of semi-democratic, or sometimes undemocratic, means in the months after the war. Once the assembly was in place, no later than 30 June 2004, the Coalition would hand over sovereignty to a new Iraqi government and dissolve itself. The Iraqis would then organize elections for a constitutional convention. Throughout the interim period, the country would be governed under a “fundamental law” guaranteeing human rights, freedom of expression and a yet to be defined federal system, the last a point of particular importance to the Kurds. Draft in disarray Ironically, the plan was at first portrayed as a victory for Sistani, and for Iraqi politicians in general. In June, the cleric had declared that any constitution would have to be drafted by an elected constitutional convention. For months, Bremer insisted that elections were simply impossible — the country had neither electoral rolls nor a recent census — and proposed instead that a constitution be drawn up by a committee of experts. Only after a constitution was drafted and approved in a referendum would elections be held. In the meantime the country would still be governed by the CPA in consultation with the IGC. Iraqi politicians, however, lobbied for sovereignty to be devolved to the IGC or some other body immediately, claiming that the CPA lacked both the familiarity with the country and the legitimacy to run Iraq and defeat the growing insurgency. Soon after the new plan was unveiled, the Washington Post commented that Sistani had “trumped” Bremer by standing firm on an elected constitutional convention. The plan, however, did not satisfy the Ayatollah. Sistani does not leave his house in the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf, so his statements against the new plan have primarily been issued through others. His first dictum against the new system came down on 26 November, after the Ayatollah met Abd al-Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Sistani, Hakim said, had “serious reservations” about the plan, without actually rejecting it outright. Sistani was also concerned that the plan made no specific mention of the role of Islam. The Grand Ayatollah hardened his stance in the coming days. After dashing down to Najaf for consultations with him, Talabani declared on 27 November that Sistani insisted any future Iraqi administrative body be elected. If there were no electoral rolls, no problem — the votes could be passed on the basis of the ration cards issued to each family in the parts of Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s control before the invasion as part of the oil-for-food programme. (Such a plan, however, would disenfranchise returned Iraqi exiles, people stripped of their nationality by the old regime and others.) A remote figure The 73-year-old Sistani is a remote figure. He sequestered himself in his home when the previous regime began assassinating senior Shi’ite clerics in the mid-1990s and did not emerge even with the overthrow of the regime. (He was besieged there by supporters of Muqtada Sadr after the murder of Abd al-Majid Khu’i.) He is not known to have met a Coalition figure (although he did meet with the late United Nations representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello) and generally prefers to issue statements through his deputies. He does not give public sermons. Iranian born, he continues to speak Arabic with a heavy Persian accent. He is none the less widely considered to be the most influential Shi’ite marja’ (source of emulation) in Iraq, if not the world, thanks largely to his having been the protégé of former Grand Ayatollah Abu al-Qasem al-Khu’i. The United States at first considered Sistani something of an ally after he issued statements that seemed to oppose the Iranian-style participation of the clergy in politics and called on Shi’ites not to attack occupation forces. His authority was considered a counterweight to the radical anti-Coalition rhetoric of preachers like Muqtada al-Sadr, whose murdered father competed with Sistani for influence during the 1990s. However, the Shi’ite clergy in general is very suspicious of any attempt that would seem to exclude the Shi’ite majority (and their religious leadership) from their proper role in governing Iraq — a role they consider themselves to have been cheated of eight decades ago by the occupying power of the time, Britain. Although the new agreement — which divides up representation according to the population of Iraq’s governorates — would certainly give Shi’ites a majority in the interim assembly, it would be dominated by the professionals who predominate in the US-appointed councils, who would be less susceptible to clerical influence then the electorate at large. The Coalition’s long-time refusal to accept an elected constitutional convention has no doubt helped to raise Sistani’s suspicions. The Ayatollah has also objected to the CPA essentially rewriting Iraqi legislation through the governing council. And although he may not want to give the clergy a direct role in politics, he has also said that they should serve as a watchdog to make sure legislation does not conflict with Islam.
SCIRI, the Kurds and the IGC Some Iraqis also suspect a malign influence on the Ayatollah in the form of SCIRI’s Abd al Aziz al-Hakim. Hakim’s elder brother, Muhammad Baqer al-Hakim, formerly served as marja’ for SCIRI’s followers, as well as the group’s political head. Abd al-Aziz inherited SCIRI’s political leadership but was too junior a scholar to inherit his brother’s spiritual authority, and SCIRI is said to be encouraging its followers to choose Sistani as their marja’. Hakim now appears to be Sistani’s main link with the politics of the Governing Council and the CPA. SCIRI has reasonable grounds to prefer direct election to caucus (one of their rivals, the Islamist Da’wa party, is disproportionately influential among the professional Shi’ites who dominate the local councils) but they might also be simply trying to maintain a status quo in which Hakim serves as al-Sistani’s unofficial deputy on the Governing Council. Others suspect the hand of SCIRI’s patrons in Tehran, who prefer to keep Iraq in a state of political upheaval. Sistani’s insistence on direct elections also runs up against the aspirations of the Kurds. The Kurds are also reluctant to hold a census now, as it might formalize the Saddam-era ethnic cleansing of the oil regions near Kirkuk. But the Kurds have yet to issue an alternative plan. Talabani, who has the habit of changing his message to suit his audience, said after meeting Sistani that he agreed with the Ayatollah’s “logical and reasonable” objection to the plan. He was also, however, overhead in Baghdad Airport during President George W. Bush’s brief Thanksgiving visit complaining that a single Shi’ite cleric should not be allowed to veto a plan and that his agreement with Bremer should stand. Meanwhile, some members of the Governing Council — in particular, those with little grassroots support — are said to be perfectly happy with the current logjam, as it perpetuates the power they might lose should it come to either direct or indirect elections. However, the Council’s lack of interest in actually wielding that authority — reportedly only nine members showed up to the meeting in which the 15 November agreement was approved — has been a major headache for the Coalition. All 24 members reportedly turned up for a debate on 30 November on the future of the agreement, but they were apparently unable to reach any decision. Hakim told Al Jazeera that they unanimously agreed that the Iraqi “public” should be consulted on the issue, which sounds like a recipe for further delay. However, at least two Council members stated that no such unanimity had been reached. Although the conflicting reports smack of the Council’s usual indecisiveness, the unanimous attendance at least suggests that it has grasped the gravity of the situation. The battle of Samarra? November closed with what may be the largest battle to date in the six-month insurgency. As many as 80 Iraqi fighters launched two ambushes on 30 November on US military columns conveying the new Iraqi currency to banks in Samarra, a predominantly Sunni town between Baghdad and Tikrit. US military officials claim they killed 54 of the attackers, wounded ten more and captured eight in the fighting, at a cost of only five soldiers lightly wounded. If this account is correct, it suggests that — despite recent resistance successes in hit-and-run attacks — American firepower and training still give the US forces a considerable advantage in anything close to set-piece fighting. It may have been that the insurgents took the risk in order to capture the currency, possibly because the hoards of old dinars, reportedly passed out to Ba’thists as insurgency slush funds in the closing days of the old regime, will shortly become worthless. Reports from the scene, however, paint a rather different picture. Many locals were reported as having witnessed US forces firing indiscriminately at civilians, who made up the bulk of a far smaller toll of casualties. Although there is no clear account of how the fire fight started except the American military’s assertion, some reports say that armed townspeople took up arms against US forces. Hospital sources reported only six dead, while police said there were eight, including an Iranian pilgrim to the Shi’ite shrine in the town. The attack closes what has been the bloodiest month yet of the insurgency for Coalition forces — 104 troops, of whom 79 were American, were killed by the resistance. US military sources, however, say that the number of attacks have declined — 22 per day, said the senior ground forces commander, Lt.-Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, on 27 November, down from a high of 50 two weeks before. But the insurgents appear to be stepping up attacks on Iraqis, as well as on non-military members of the Coalition. The same day Sanchez gave his press conference, seven Spanish intelligence officers were gunned down in an ambush in their vehicles on the road south of Baghdad. Two Japanese diplomats, two South Korean contract workers, and a Colombian employee of the US firm Kellogg, Brown & Root were also killed in similar ambushes over the following day. Some civilian flights into Baghdad were also suspended when a heat-seeking missile struck the wing of a DHL Airbus 300, forcing it to make an emergency landing — the first of dozens of strikes to hit. Smaller planes have been able to make it safely in and out of Baghdad airport by flying in directly over the runway, then spiralling down, and so staying out of portable surface-to-air missile range from the airport’s perimeter. The Airbus, however, was presumably too large to do that. Although the missile risk at Baghdad Airport is still minimal, the hit — as well as the attacks on foreign personnel — will probably make it even more difficult for the interim Iraqi government to find international firms willing to work in the country. |
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