MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya.) Can Iraq achieve national unity? Today this is the most important question both for Iraqis and for all parties interested in the Iraq settlement.
We want to believe that the answer is "yes," because the alternative is the breakup of the country and chaos in the region. But the problem is that achieving unity is a long process that can take several months and even years, simultaneously requiring a solution to numerous urgent social, economic and security problems.
The first goal Iraq has to accomplish is to form executive bodies of power - a presidential council comprising president and two vice presidents - and to appoint prime minister and the entire cabinet. It is their role to solve all the vital problems of the population. But it is still unclear when executive power will appear in the country. Last time it took Iraqis three months to form the government. At present the situation is complicated by the fact that they are trying to form a permanent, rather than a provisional government, and the stakes are much higher. Russian and Western diplomatic sources forecast that the government in Iraq will not appear until March or even later.
Consultations on distribution of portfolios began in late December, when the winners of the parliamentary election were announced: the United Iraqi Alliance (Shiites) and the Kurdish Alliance. That information was preliminary, but, as it turned out, the difference from the final results was in- significant. According to the latter, they got 128 and 53 seats respectively. Had Shiites got ten more votes they would have been able to pass their resolutions in parliament independently. But now they had to form a coalition with the Kurds, as had been the case in the previous provisional parliament.
So the results of the December 2005 election were similar to the poll held in January 2005: they testified to the dominance of the same political forces. The only significant difference was that Sunni blocs ran in the latter campaign. This is important with a view to the prospects of national unity and Sunnis' participation in the political process, which could potentially downplay armed resistance, especially active in districts where Sunnis dominate. But in reality the parliament is split as before and even deeper, because now there are more players. Sunnis is not the only reason. It should be remembered that almost all forces that have made it to the parliament consist of different groups with sometimes opposite interests and stances, whether on domestic or foreign policy. A typical example is the United Iraqi Alliance, which comprises 17 parties and movements. So, first of all, Shiites will have to reach an agreement between themselves, at least on a candidate for prime minister.
The crucial part of achieving national unity is including Sunnis in the process of portfolio distribution. Two of their unions, the Iraqi Bloc of Concord and the National Dialog Front got 44 and 11 seats in the parliament respectively. Another Sunni bloc, the Reconciliation and Liberation, got three seats. So they have grounds to claim important posts in the government and the parliament. The United States supports the idea of including their representatives in executive bodies provided they abandon the resistance policy. America hopes that national unity will help to stabilize the situation in Iraq and, consequently, will speed up withdrawal of foreign troops, above all American, from the country.
Russia pointed to the need of broad representation of Iraq's ethnicities, denominations and political groups in bodies of power in 2004, when Iraq received sovereignty and was forming its first government. But these proposals remained unheard. Now it will be much more difficult to ignore the U.S. recommendations, although many of the Shiite politicians who have won the election did so in the past.
Although Sunnis and the international community call for forming the government on the principle of national unity, some Shiite politicians say that it is "undemocratic." Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution, which is part of the winning Shiite bloc, said in an interview with the BBC, "This is democracy - there are winners and losers." A deeper understanding of democratic principles, when a minority's opinions are taken into account and society is built on compromises, does not benefit Shiites. Nevertheless, they will have to find the middle ground and learn to reach agreements. This, however, is true not only of Shiites, but of all other political forces in Iraq. After all, forming the government is the first, but not the only issue that requires a compromise. It is going to get even harder, but Iraqis do not have an alternative.
