Iraq Grappling With Bitterness and Sweetness
In recent months, Iraq has not passed quiet night and it has witnessed successive events like people’s protests over corruption and inefficient economy, U.S. attack at Hashd Al-Shaabi forces and occupation of the U.S. Embassy and setting it on fire, assassination of leader of resistance and humiliation of the U.S. grandeur during the missile attack at the U.S. airbase at Ain al-Asad and massive protests of Iraqis and their call for expulsion of Americans from Iraq and above all, in my opinion, Iraqi parliament’s approval for expulsion of foreigners from Iraqi territory.
IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK
All of these events made me ponder why Iraq should not see establishment of peace and security after getting rid of the claws of Baath Party and Saddam Hussein. When Iraqi electoral laws were approved, despite all challenges for electing prime minister, Iraq was experiencing a positive transformation, namely, the approval of Iraq’s new electoral law. Iraq electoral law consists of 50 articles that 14 of them had been approved in the previous session of parliament and ultimately, 50 articles were totally approved.
Regarding the electoral law, London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Araby Al-Jadeed (the New Arab) whose approach is not in favor of national current of Iraq in an article delved into details of the law which was hailed after the approval by leader of Sadrist Movement Moqtada al-Sadr. The paper in its article pointed to Moqtada al-Sadr’s tweet where the leader of Sadrist Movement wrote that another public demand was materialized by the support of grand cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the elite community and all honorable Iraqi nationalists either lawmakers or other ones.
If we want to mention important points in Iraq’s election climate, we must say that one of the major changes in the electoral law was a change in voting mechanism which is a shift from voting to the list to voting to individuals. Before this amendment, every province was considered as an election constituency and victory in the election was possible only when the candidates’ names were included on major parties’ lists. But today Iraq’s electoral system is individual-centered and away from the list-centered in the small election constituencies.
Political analysts and experts believe that this will weaken the traditional political parties which have ruled over the country since 2005. One of the advantages of the new law is removal of the Sainte-Laguë method for counting the notorious votes in Iraq especially that this system had a significant share in coalition of public votes and their supports of big parties.
According to the Sainte-Lague method, after all the votes have been tallied, successive quotients are calculated for each party. The formula for the quotient is calculated as follows: the total number of votes that party received will be divided by the number of seats that have been allocated so far to that party, initially 0 for all parties. In this method and regarding to the number of seats for any election constituency, sometimes one party may win a seat in the parliament by winning only one-third of the winning party and this is one of the problems of the electoral law which is under harsh criticism. This method has been used since 2014 election in Iraq.
According to eye-witnesses, after the approval of the new parliamentary law, hundreds of protesters at Al-Tahrir Square of Baghdad chanted the slogan of “victory” for their demands and protests and this will pave the ground for peace in Iraq.
But the climate for witnessing tangible peace and tranquility in Iraq emerged when Iraqi President by his initiative named Mohammad Allawi as new Prime Minister and the parliament also endorsed it and gave one month deadline to Allawi to name his cabinet members.
Of course, one should owe Iraq President’s initiative to Grand Ayatollah Sistani who emphasized holding elections in Iraq based on the new law.
Allawi has promised the people to restore peace and to combat corruption and he would hold election based on the new law as soon as possible.
Today all groups, parties and influential politicians in Iraq confirm that the government’s executive authority is an important step for national unity in Iraq.
Today one can say good for Iraqi people who put behind bitter and gloomy days and have eyes on sweet future and actions.
We in Iran also pray for our Iraqi brothers for having a strong and powerful country and wish them a prosperous and victorious nation and government.
By: Hamid Reza Naghashian
