Middle East Focus: An Imaginary Victory in Iraq, Now for the Math on the Ground and the Religion ……

Arabia Deserta

An Imaginary Victory in Iraq, Now for the Math on the Ground and the Religion ……

The media is the West has been euphoric over what they term a possible “win” by the Iraqiya alliance of Allawi. Major Saudi media went so far as to claim that al- Maliki and Allawi now will control the same number of seats in parliament. Some Saudi media self-servingly called it a political”earthquake”. All this is quite incorrect, even though the votes seem to be moving back toward al-Maliki for now. Parliamentary seats have less to do with total popular votes in Iraq than most people assume. They are based on a complex system of vote distribution among the provinces. Al-Maliki will end up with the most popular votes and members of parliament, which means he will have first dibs in forming a government. It is healthier for Iraq if a new prime minister is chosen, but Maliki, in true Arab fashion, will not give up easily.

Allawi is a former Baathist and has strong autocratic leanings, possibly more than the others, but that is okay because he will not be selected. Whether al-Maliki succeeds or not does not depend on Allawi, but on the Iraqi National Alliance of Sadrists and ISCI, and on the Kurds. Essentially the mostly Shi’s groups and the Kurds will determine the outcome. This is what the electoral math in Iraq tells me: all the other public speculation about Allawi is pure noise and wishful thinking.

Allawi himself has been trying to encourage the image of a victory that simply does not exist. He even took the take in his foreign travels and penned an editorial in the major Saudi media Thursday about his vision for Iraq, a vision he will not have the chance to see through according to my fatwa last week. He mostly wants an Iraq in the mold of the surrounding Arab authoritarian regimes, although he does not say so directly. It is a message directed more at the Saudis than the Iraqis. Meanwhile Allawi is in a political bind: the longer cabinet negotiations continue, the longer al-Maliki remains prime minister.

If there was areal winner it was Muqtada al-Sadr, who will have more power than Allawi’s loose alliance to influence the government formation. Which indicates, unfortunately, that Iraqis of all sects will have to put up with more religious influence.
Cheers
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