Iraqi Parties Circle Around Election Bill

“We don’t have open lists in Iraq. We don’t even have half-open lists, because the open mechanism means that candidates should be individually nominated,” he said.

Othman said that in reality, all the major Iraqi parties wanted candidate lists to be selected by their leaders, not the voters, but were reluctant to say so publicly because this would get an adverse reaction from the electorate and from influential senior Muslim clerics.

Abu Yusif, a 48-year-old Baghdad resident, has not voted in any recent election, because he has so little confidence in the parties that populate the political scene.

“I feel it’s a great sin to vote for any of those politicians because none of them thinks about Iraq or the Iraqis,” he said. “All they care about is personal advantage and their parties’ benefit.”

The signs do not look promising for the forthcoming electoral law. There is a danger that more and more voters like Abu Yusif will feel alienated from a process in which real choice is limited.

Nuha al-Dirwish is a civil activist who used to run voter education programmes. These days, she says, she has stopped doing so, because she herself is not even convinced of the importance of voting when the outcome is “already preordained”.

“I was hoping the situation in Iraq would change for the better, but the predominance of corrupt parties has driven me to give up urging people to take part in elections – moreover, it has led me not to take part myself,” Dirwish said.

Laith Hammoudi is IWPR’s editor in Iraq.

(Source: Institute for War and Peace Reporting)