THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

48%
26%
14%
12%
100%

I don't understand your question about the turnout. (As far as I understand this number, 58% out those, who registered, voted.)

Analysis:
Votes Show Islam Party Strength
Sunday February 13, 2005

By SALLY BUZBEE

Associated Press Writer

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - For years, opponents of free elections in the Arab world have whispered warnings that if democracy ever came to this region, Islamic fundamentalists would sweep to power.

Now, with votes counted in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it's clear there's truth to the idea that strongly conservative, Islam-driven candidates fare well.

In Iraq, a coalition linked to the country's main Shiite Muslim cleric won 48 percent of the votes in the first free elections in a half-century. And in the first phase of Saudi elections for city councils, seven candidates with Islamist leanings won in Riyadh, the capital.

Neither vote means a new wave of fundamentalism will soon flood this oil-rich region.

In Iraq, the cleric's coalition will be forced to reach out to other parties to form a government, and its leaders have said they do not want an Iranian-style theocracy. In Saudi Arabia, a government already strongly Islamic could moderate the councils through appointments - and tribal candidates did well outside the capital.

Yet at a time when Islamic governments hostile to the West send a shiver down European and American spines, the results clearly show that in countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and even Egypt, religious parties have a natural advantage.

With their charity networks and their history of opposing the region's dictators, Islamic parties are sometimes all that Arab voters know or trust.

``They are more organized and they invested a lot of effort to mobilize people to go to vote for them,'' said Mohammed Abdel Jabar, editor in chief of Baghdad's Al Sabah newspaper. ``There is a tendency to support the Islamist groups'' anyway in Iraq, he noted, because of the society's strong religious base.

In Iraq, that was even more pronounced because voters ``didn't find an alternative,'' Jabar said.

In Saudi Arabia, many of the winning candidates were either imams in mosques who preach conservative ideas, teachers in schools, or people who work for Islamic charities, said Mshari al Thaydi, a Saudi analyst and expert on Islamic groups in Riyadh.

``In a society where there is no cinema, no theater, no alternative culture, you have to expect that people know only those who talk to them in mosques and schools,'' al Thaydi said.

To him, that means democracy must wait. He believes in first trying to liberalize Saudi society, then moving toward democratic elections.

Losing Riyadh candidate Abdul-Rahman al-Humaidi is even more blunt. ``Let's forget about elections if these people are going to win,'' the pro-reform university professor said. ``Let's have appointments.''

It's an old argument.

In 1992, Algeria's military called off legislative elections in the world's second-largest Arab nation after it became apparent Islamic hard-liners were set to win. That drew few complaints from the West - which was worried about the hard-liners' ascent - but it also prompted a bloody Islamic insurgency.

Next door, many middle-class Tunisians support their authoritarian government, fearful that free elections would bring to power the now-underground Islamists who support head scarves, bans on the cinema and restrictions on women's work and rights.

In Egypt, a country of 70 million people brimming with young, under-employed men, President Hosni Mubarak is set to win his fifth term later this year under a system that outlaws opponents. Yet the United States never makes free elections its top priority in talks in Cairo - despite President Bush's push for democracy across the Middle East.

U.S. officials know, as does everyone else, that despite crackdowns over the years, Islamic groups would fare extremely well if Egypt held a truly open election.

Yet other Arabs and many Westerners, including U.S. officials, argue that even if Islamic groups are likely to win at first in the Middle East, democracy must start somewhere. They say governments might prove more moderate, and moderate candidates might fare better, as time goes on.

Only 149,000 out of 600,000 eligible Saudis even registered to vote, al Thaydi notes. That may have given outsized influence to Islamic-leaning voters highly motivated to participate - influence that could wane if more Saudis vote in the future, he said.

In Iraq, the winning Shiites have not said they want to form a religious government similar to Iran's, where clerics have a direct role, notes Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international relations and expert on Islam at Harvard University.

The Shiites do want Iraq's constitution to have an Islamic foundation. But they must reach out to other groups - most probably the largely Sunni Kurds - to form a government, meaning those groups will have an impact on the eventual constitution.

Many see that as, quite frankly, a relief.

Says Sen. Rick Santorum, a conservative Republican in the U.S. Senate: ``It was a good thing that the Shiites can't just sort of dictate how things are to go.''

---

Sally Buzbee is chief of Middle East news for The Associated Press, based in Cairo, Egypt.

I remember back when I used to post here more often there were something like thirty posts per page. Now it's down to about ten. Did they change the format, and if so, can I change it back somehow? Clicking through several pages to get the gist of a discussion is really annoying.

(as if that needed additional discouragement).

1. Distribution of Seats in Iraqi Parliament Al-Haya...
Distribution of Seats in Iraqi Parliament

Al-Hayat [Arabic link] has printed the number of seats won by all the small parties in the Iraqi elections. The total number of seats is 275. What it shows is that the religious Shiites easily have a majority if they pull in a few small parties. I count 6 obvious Shiite seats that could be picked up by the UIA for most votes important to religious Shiites. That would give them 50.5 percent of the vote. They'd just need one or two other independents to win most votes.

AFP is convinced that the UIA may all by itself be given 140 seats, not 133, because of a "complex counting system" to be employed in seating delegates. Andrew Arato writes, "This would be so, because wasted votes for very small parties . . . would have to redivided. Say it is 8%. 48% of that is 4%. Even of 5 half is 2.5% that would put them over." If this procedure yields an extra percentage to the UIA, and if we add in the religious Shiite tiny parties, the UIA could well have a comfortable majority in the parliament.

United Iraqi Alliance (Shiite): 133 seats
Kurdish Alliance: 71
Iraqiya (Allawi = Secular Shiites) 38
Iraqiyyun (al-Yawir= Sunni Arabs) 5
Turkmen Front of Iraq 3
Cadres and the Chosen (Sadrist Shiites) 3
People's Union (Communist) 3
Kurdish Islamic Coalition 2
Organization of Islamic Action (Shiite) 2
Democratic National Alliance (Abd Faisal Ahmad) 1
National Mesopotamian List (Christian) 1
Welfare and Liberation Bloc (Mash'an al-Juburi, Sunni) 1
Caucus for Iraqi National Unity (Nahru Muhammad Abdul Karim, Sunni) 1
Independent Democrats (Adnan Pachachi, Sunni) 1
Iraqi Islamic Party (Muhsin Abdul Hamid, Sunni; had withdrawn) 1
Islamic Dawa Movement (splinter of Dawa, headed by Adil Majid) 1
Iraqi National Caucus (Husain Muhammad Abdullah) 1
Constitutional Monarchy Movement (Sharif Ali b. Husain) 1
Royal Iraqi Hashimi Caucus (Sharif Ma'mul al-Naysan) 1
National Democratic Alliance (Malik Duhan al-Hasan) 1
Democratic Iraqi Caucus (Ahmad Jabir Abdullah) 1
National Front for Iraqi Unity 1
Sun, Feb 13, 2005 11:49