The Power of Anger

The role of outsider is a strange one for most Sunni Arabs in Iraq.

Although they make up only about 20% of the population, they held a tight grip on power for most of the last century. Saddam Hussein ruthlessly oppressed Shiites and Sunni Kurds, showering money and privilege on his Sunni Arab brothers.

So it’s little wonder that many Sunni Muslims are expressing scant enthusiasm for the Jan. 30 vote to elect a transitional national assembly. Several leading Sunni groups are boycotting the election, and expectations for Sunni voter turnout in some areas is as low as 5%.

“What’s the point in voting?” Rosil Shayeb, 24, asked as she left one of Baghdad’s largest Sunni mosques.

“In the end, America is just going to bring in whomever she wants, whether we want them or not,” she said “If the elections were legitimate and honest, I would vote. But how can we vote for a government under the control of occupation forces?”

American diplomats say many Sunni leaders appear to have concluded that they have little to gain from joining a process that will formally end their dominance in Iraq.

U.S. officials warn that this experiment with the politics of abstention could prove disastrous for Sunnis.

“It’s a catastrophically wrong analysis,” said a senior U.S. Embassy official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “In every case I know where someone’s view is that saying no makes you stronger, they either get weaker or they end up negotiating for less.”

U.S. officials, of course, have more than just the Sunnis’ best interests in mind. The election’s success depends on a sizable turnout from all sides. If large numbers of Sunnis fail to vote, the new government will lack credibility in the eyes of many Iraqis.

Perhaps more important, the raging insurgency, backed chiefly by militant Sunni Arabs and members of the former regime, could continue to stymie U.S. efforts to rebuild Iraq.

Although major Sunni political parties, such as the Iraqi Islamic Party, insist that they reject the use of terrorism and violence, some Sunni clerics have refused to condemn attacks against American troops. The impending election has only served to intensify strikes against Shiites, Americans and election workers.

Sunni leaders insist that violence and lawlessness in most of their stronghold cities make free and safe elections virtually impossible.

Election officials concede that preparations for voting in Fallouja, Ramadi, Samarra and Mosul have been slow.

Sunni Arab leaders dismiss predictions that their strategy will backfire, insisting that their withdrawal from the election will have no long-term ramifications and, in fact, may increase their power and popularity as an opposition force.

“This talk about the marginalization of the Sunnis is nothing more than political propaganda,” said Mohsen Abdel Hamid, chairman of the Iraqi Islamic Party, the leading Sunni Arab political group. The party initially offered a slate of candidates for the vote but announced late last month that it would withdraw from the race.

“The Sunni people will not recognize the legitimacy of this election, and they will not follow its decisions or laws,” he said. “Now we are going to work on the side of the opposition, and this opposition will lead to the unity of Iraq. This is what our people want us to do.”

Because the election for the assembly is based upon a single national district rather than regional precincts, Sunni leaders quickly determined that participating in the vote would be political suicide, potentially winning them just a few seats.

“If we had not withdrawn, we would have collapsed and failed in the eyes of the Iraqi people,” Hamid said.

He insisted that the party had no intention of pushing its slate or reentering the race. Unlike other parties, his party has printed no posters or fliers.

Hamid said he couldn’t even remember the slate’s three-digit identification number, which voters must use on election day.

Across town, another Sunni Arab politician is pursuing a different strategy. Adnan Pachachi, a former member of the now-defunct Governing Council who was once considered a strong contender for president, has quieted his calls for a delay in the balloting and jumped aggressively into the race.

At Pachachi’s campaign headquarters in the upscale Mansour district, staffers raced around hanging freshly printed posters with a large picture of the elder statesman.

Pachachi said he was seeking a delay but was more worried about Sunnis being shut out of the next government, which will draft a constitution and rule the country for at least a year till elections are held.

“What will a boycott achieve?” he asked. “I can see possible harm, but I don’t see any benefits. Sunnis would still be able to have greater influence with just a few seats rather than none at all. They are really doing it the hard way.”

Hachim Hassani, Iraq’s minister of industry and minerals, is another Sunni politician who fears that the price of nonparticipation will be high. When the Iraqi Islamic Party withdrew, Hassani quit the party rather than resign his post.

“You’re going to have another year of Sunnis absent from the government, and that’s not good,” he said.

Hamid is confident that Sunnis won’t be forgotten during the formation of the next government. In fact, in many ways the boycott has strengthened their hand. The lack of Sunni participation is now one of the biggest issues in the election with U.S. and Iraqi officials trying to woo Sunnis back.

Already there is talk about postelection adjustments, such as giving Sunni Arabs additional seats in the assembly or high-profile Cabinet posts, redoing regional elections in Sunni-dominated areas or appointing a special advisory council of Sunni leaders.

Even if Sunnis boycott on Jan. 30, Hamid notes, they’ll have another chance to run by the end of the year, when another parliamentary election is scheduled.

“This election is just a transition election,” Hamid said. “This government is not going to determine the future of Iraq.”

The Sunnis’ ace in the hole may be the constitution-drafting process. Under the Transitional Administrative Law, a new constitution must be ratified in a national vote by October.

In a controversial concession to the Kurds, if two-thirds majorities in any three Iraqi provinces reject the constitution, it fails. At the time, everyone assumed the provision was designed chiefly to give Kurds veto power over the document.

A few months ago, Sunnis, who hold majorities in more than three provinces, realized that they, too, could exploit the provision.

“They came to the conclusion,” the embassy official said, “that the best thing to do is sit it all out and blow up the constitution when it happens.”