IRAQ

Finally, an Iraqi Government

The convening of the National Assembly reveals what Iraqis voted for

By Tony Karon

The Iraqi people finally got to see their new government in action on March 16, 2005. That's the day on which the National Assembly met for the first time, another historic milestone in Iraq's transition to democracy. Besides appointing a government and governing the country over the next year, the Assembly will oversee the drafting of a new Iraqi constitution. Whether the new Iraq will take the shape that the U.S. would like is still very much up in the air, and will depend on how Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis accommodate their differing concerns.

The big winner on election day was the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), a mostly Shiite group assembled under the auspices of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and led by moderate Islamist parties. The UIA won a majority of seats in the Assembly but not the two-thirds required under the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), the interim constitution bequeathed by former U.S. administrator J. Paul Bremer, to choose a government. That means the Shiites have to negotiate a deal with the parties that will give them the votes required to create a new government. And that requirement has made kingmakers of the Kurds—3 million out of Iraq's 27 million people—who won 75 Assembly seats, making them the natural coalition ally for the UIA because between them, the two groups account for 75 percent of the seats.

The Kurds are using their kingmaker status to demand not only that they maintain the autonomy they have enjoyed for over a decade under the protection of the Allied "no-fly" zone, but also that their domain be extended to include the fiercely contested oil-rich city of Kirkuk.

The Shiites are reluctant to concede these points, which are anathema to a wide range of Arab Iraqis, both Sunni and Shiite. Conceding to Kurdish demands on Kirkuk, for example, will further alienate the Sunni population of northern Iraq. The Sunnis may not currently have significant representation in the political process, but a sizeable segment of the community is represented on the battlefield by the insurgency.

The future of U.S. troops in Iraq could also be a problem, with UIA leaders suggesting that while they don't want them out right away, they want to see a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. Some uia leaders are also pushing to make Islamic Sharia law the basis of personal-status law in the new Iraq, governing issues such as marriage, divorce and inheritance. But the more Islamist leaders in the uia may not be able to count on the support of many of their more moderate and secularist colleagues, let alone their coalition partners.

TAL was designed to force Iraq's political leaders to work together and find the compromises necessary to build consensus. The Shiites, however, will be watching carefully to see that democracy gives their leaders a political dominance equivalent to their demographic dominance. If the Bremer rules are perceived to be holding them back, they'll challenge them. After all, the primary purpose of the new National Assembly is for the Iraqis themselves to design their own rules for the next stage of the political contest. —from TIME, March 16, 2005

Questions

1. What are three primary functions of Iraq's National Assembly?

2. Why have the Kurds been called "kingmakers" in the newly elected Iraqi government?