Word: iraq
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...other security measures for election day itself, the exact figures on voter turnout, as well as the results themselves, won't be known for days. But most Iraqis have been expecting a long, turbulent postelection period, for which Sunday's attacks are merely background noise. (See pictures of Iraq's revival...
...election could be crucial in determining whether Iraq continues on a path toward stability, independence and democracy, or plunges back into the kind of vicious civil warfare from which it has just emerged. Previous American-sponsored elections produced a series of sectarian and ethnic leaders who proved unable to resolve fundamental issues regarding the future of the Iraqi state - from the sharing of oil revenue, to the boundaries of disputed territories and the balance of power between the central government and the regions. And when gridlock in Baghdad was at its worst, the country went up in flames...
...remains to be seen if Iraq's leaders have learned from their mistakes. Though all the major parties, realizing that it is impossible to govern without reaching beyond their own base, formed multisectarian and multiethnic coalitions for election, their commitment to compromise and unity will be tested in the weeks ahead. (See pictures of the U.S. troops in Iraq...
...Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shi'ite dominated State of Law coalition, and the ideologically similar, but more Sunni and more secular, Iraqiya coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Pushing for decentralization are the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government - the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq - and an alliance of Shi'te parties led by Ammar al-Hakim, Ahmed Chalabi and Moqtada al-Sadr among others - which critics claim is bent on creating a semiautonomous Shi'ite enclave in oil-rich southern Iraq...
...Either direction could destabilize the country. Devolution could spark a civil war between Arabs and Kurds, while further centralization in a country with a history of totalitarianism could put Iraq on a slippery slope to a new kind of dictatorship...