Word: sunni
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Throughout Iraq's restive Sunni heartland, the military is in a race to subdue the insurgents by Jan. 30, when the country is scheduled to hold its first free elections in nearly 50 years. In Mosul commanders say they have curbed the insurgents' movements in the city. But the rebels have responded with ever more sophisticated strikes, disabling U.S. military vehicles with roadside bombs and then opening fire on stopped convoys from several positions. Their attacks have killed nine U.S. soldiers and scores of Iraqi national guardsmen in the past week. "By no means is this a safe city," says...
...have resisted calls from a cross section of Iraqi political, tribal and religious leaders to postpone the vote until violence subsides in the insurgent-infested swath of territory that cuts through the center and up into the northern parts of the country. Those are areas with heavy concentrations of Sunni Arabs, who make up only 20% of Iraq's population yet ruled Iraq during Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. They know that in democracies the majority rules, and that in Iraq long-suppressed Shi'ite Muslims--who make up 60% of the population--are the majority. As distasteful as the prospect...
...holding the election under the current volatile conditions carries its own risks. The insurgents' aim is to depress turnout in the Sunni areas and strip the election of broad legitimacy. About 15 million Iraqis are eligible to vote on election day, according to Iraq's Independent Electoral Commission. A commission official predicts about half will actually cast a ballot. That kind of turnout would be acceptable, but analysts are worried that the new legislature won't adequately reflect Iraq's ethnic composition. The assembly will select a new Prime Minister and President but, more important, will also draw...
What's more, the electoral system devised last year by the U.S., the U.N. and the now disbanded Iraqi Governing Council could further work against the Sunnis. Rather than let candidates compete in their home provinces--which in the Sunni-dominated areas north and west of Baghdad would have guaranteed that Sunnis win seats in the constitutional assembly, no matter how many people showed up--the system effectively throws everyone into a single pool. Those candidates who receive the most votes in the national tally will win seats. At the time it was adopted, a U.S. official says, the system...
...likelihood of low Sunni participation - and the resulting reluctance of many Sunnis to accept the outcome - could compound Sunni alienation from the post-Saddam order. Indeed, a discreet State Department poll recently found only 12 percent of Sunnis believe the poll will be legitimate or fair. Aware of the danger of escalating a sectarian civil war, leaders of the Shiite alliance have identified reaching out to the Sunnis as a top priority after the election. A Sistani aide told an Arab newspaper last weekend that the Grand Ayatollah believed "the representation of our Sunni brethren in a new government would...