March 25th, 2010 by Josh

One day before Iraq’s election results are scheduled to be released, Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) chief Faraj al-Haydari insisted that a manual recount of ballots is unnecessary. This despite statements from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, President Jalal Talabani and others espousing support for such a measure to “preclude any doubt and misunderstanding” in the electoral results. “Anyone has the right to suggest,” Haydari said, “but I think we go and work according to the law. We listen to them. We can discuss with them. We can explain to them but we don’t take orders. This is law. It’s an election.” Last Sunday, with just over 90 percent of the ballots counted, the IHEC announced that Iyad Allawi’s coalition held an 8,000 vote lead.

Anticipating the forthcoming political spectacle, Robert Dreyfuss delineates a number of scenarios, each of which has a quite noticeable Rubik’s Cube effect “in which any twist or turn makes progress in one way but causes more problems on the other side of the cube.” Irregardless of who assumes power, Dreyfuss predicts a resurgence of destabilizing and potentially violent forces.

But Marc Lynch offers a rejoinder to those who think that Iraq is unraveling, saying that the electoral results “suggest that Iraqi nationalism is becoming a more potent force than sectarianism and that most voters have no trouble accepting a strong central government.” That said, Lynch admits that the structural deficiencies within Iraq’s political system remain unaddressed, perhaps leading to a “moment of truth” if either Allawi wins or Maliki squeezes out an insufficiently decisive victory and cannot build a governing coalition. Ultimately, however, “the electoral experience has only highlighted the essential irrelevance of the United States to unfolding events.”

Posted in Elections, Iraq, Political Parties, Secularism, US foreign policy |