Iraq’s Arab Sunnis will do a U-turn and join the political process despite their lack of representation in the newly elected national assembly, Sunni leaders said on Monday.
Many Sunnis protested that the election was flawed and unfair, but in the wake of Sunday’s results, which confirmed the marginalisation of what was Iraq’s ruling class, their political parties want to lobby for a share of power.
”Our view is that this election was a step towards democracy and ending the occupation,” said Ayad al-Samaray, the assistant secretary general of the Iraqi Islamic party. He said unnamed Sunni leaders blundered in depicting the election as a deepening of the occupation.
The insurgency ravaging Iraq is based in Sunni areas, and there were fears that the violence would escalate if the once-dominant minority was further alienated. A call by clerics for a boycott, and threats by insurgents meant very few Sunnis voted in the January 30 poll.
Having endured the brunt of United States attacks in towns such as Fallujah and Ramadi, many derided the ballot as an attempt to legitimise a foreign occupation. The consequent landslide for the Shias and Kurds means that they will drive the new government and the drafting of a constitution.
An alliance of cleric-backed Shias won 48% of the vote, which could give it a wafer-thin majority in the 275-seat assembly. Kurds won 26%, and a slate headed by the outgoing prime minister, Ayad Allawi, won almost 14%.
All three blocs have promised to reach out to the Sunnis, who comprise a fifth of the population but won just a handful of seats because of low turnouts in their areas. This will soon be tested as parties forge alliances and tussle for government posts, including that of prime minister and president.
Secular Sunni leaders on Monday accepted the victors’ invitation to participate, potentially draining support from the insurgency.
”We can’t say it was wise or logical to not participate; it was an emotional decision,” said Samaray. ”Now the Sunni community faces the fact that it made a big mistake and that it would have been far better to participate.”
His party, the main Sunni group since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, was in talks with Kurds and Shias. He added: ”The Sunni community will accept to share this country with others. They do not need to dominate.”
Adnan Pachachi, a Sunni elder statesman, also predicted Sunnis would join the political process.
”They missed an opportunity to participate and want to make up for it,” he said. Pachachi’s was one of two Sunni parties that did stand in the election. It won 0,1%; the other got 2%.
They hope for a better out come in elections in December, but there is no guarantee Sunnis will respond. Hardline clerics have given mixed signals and some secular groups, such as the Iraqi National Founding Conference, say the price of their participation is a timetable for US withdrawal, which Washington has resisted.
On Tuesday in al-Mansure, a Sunni district of Baghdad, people had no regrets about boycotting the election.
”It was not legitimate,” said Faizal Muhammad (38) a tea shop owner. ”We are living as strangers in our own country.”
He accused American patrols of intimidation and said snipers in a communications tower overlooking his shop were trigger-happy. Destroyed in the Gulf war, the structure was rebuilt in 1994 and named Saddam Tower. It had a revolving restaurant popular with tourists and members of the regime. But it was wrecked in the most recent war, and its base is now ringed by sandbags, barbed wire and cement blocks behind which US soldiers’ helmets can be seen.
”It was a symbol of Iraq. Now it is a symbol of occupation,” said Muhammad.
Insurgents launched more attacks on Monday. A roadside bomb killed three Iraqi soldiers in Baquba, gunmen killed two policemen in Mosul, mortars wounded three policemen in Baghdad, and an explosion ripped open an oil pipeline near Kirkuk. – Guardian Unlimited Â