Iraq's year of voting dangerously

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 89-103

  Dawisha, Adeed ^a  

^a MIAMI UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33646743377     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.2006.0025     Document Type: Review

References (25)

1. The transition plan announced by U.S. officials on 15 November 2003 provided for direct elections for a constitutional convention but only indirect elections for the Transitional National Assembly. This met with intense Iraqi protest and was abandoned after UN mediation in favor of direct elections for the National Assembly - which was to act as both a parliament and a constitutional convention - by 31 January 2005.
2. Although this was the widely shared view of international experts and most Iraqi political leaders, some Americans nevertheless continued strongly to advocate FPTP while condemning PR. See for example Michael Rubin, "The Wrong Elections for Iraq," Washington Post, 19 June 2004.
3. Donald L. Horowitz. "Electoral Systems: A Primer for Decision Makers," Journal of Democracy 14 (October 2003): 115-27.
4. Later, when Iraqi ministers were appointed under the CPA, the ethnic and sectarian balance in the Governing Council was replicated.
5. In the typical situation, an electoral threshold is often favored in part to keep small extremist parties out of parliament. In Iraq, however, it became apparent that radical movements and parties like Muqtada al-Sadr's probably had enough support to clear any electoral threshold, while some of the more liberal politicians and parties would likely have had to struggle to obtain the needed vote share.
6. The population shares could be estimated based on either the 1997 census or the food-ration data, but in fact they yielded similar percentages for each province. The U.S. advisor also suggested the possibility of breaking up the largest provinces, particularly Baghdad (which had almost a fourth of the 220 district seats), into multiple districts.
7. Carina Perelli, Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing, Baghdad, 4 June 2004. Transcript available at www.iraqcoalition.org/transcripts/ 20040604_Perelli_Prep.html.
8. The Sunni parties feared that without guaranteed district representation, based on the provinces, the much greater degree of violence, intimidation, and resentment in their areas would result in a sharply lower voter turnout, leaving them underrepresented. Yet by boycotting, they left themselves virtually unrepresented. Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (New York: Times Books, 2005), 323.
9. There was in fact strong sentiment in the transitional Assembly to vote for a sixmonth postponement of the deadline, as the interim constitution allowed on a one-time basis. But the United States was strongly opposed to it, and the Sunnis as well were not enthusiastic about remaining in the inferior status of unelected members.
10. Al-Rafidayn (Baghdad), 13 October 2005.
11. Specifically, all or at least most of the nine seats allocated to Anbar Province and the eight seats allocated to Salah Al-Din, plus a good share of the seats in the mixed provinces such as Nineveh, which has 19 seats.
12. For the above incidents, see Al-Sharq al-Awsat (London), 9 and 11 December 2005;
13. Al-Ahali (Baghdad), 7 December 2005;
14. and Al-Rafidayn (Baghdad), 29 November and 17 December 2005.
15. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 30 November 2005.
16. New York Times, 11 December 2005.
17. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 11 December 2006.
18. The gist of the UIA position was that political decisions are based on considerations of the national interest, but most Iraqis after all are devout Muslims who will not be comfortable with Western-type secularism.
19. Out of 15, 568, 702 registered voters, 11, 895, 756 valid votes, 139, 656 invalid votes, and 62, 836 blank votes were cast in all Iraqi governorates.
20. "Observers' reports tell of good conduct of elections," Independent Electoral Commission press release, 24 December 2005, available at www.ieciraq.org.
21. The disparity between the UIA's percentage of national votes and parliamentary seats is probably explained by the IECI's decision to use Hare's "Largest Remainder Method" to distribute seats.
22. Al-Sabah (Baghdad), 14 January 2006; al-Arabiya television station, 14 January 2006
23. Al-Rafidayn, 2 December 2005.
24. Al-Hayat (London), 6 January 2006.
25. Al-Ahali, 4 January 2006.