Iraq Sunnis Look to December vote
Reuters’s reporter Mariam Karouny is reporting that Iraqi’s Sunni Muslim minority “is doing everything it can to make sure it gets its tactics right. Here’s a sampling of Ms. Karouny’s reporting:
Sunnis, who formed the backbone of the ruling classes under Saddam and for decades before that, were left with just a handful of seats, 17, in the 275-member parliament. By population, they might have expected to get 50 or more.
This is a powerful incentive for Iraqi Sunnis to turn out with strong numbers and get involved in the political process. Based on their turnout for the ratification of the Constitution, I’m betting that they’ll show up in even greater numbers for this election than they did for the Constitution’s ratification.
The charter grants the Shiites and Kurds effective autonomy in northern and southern Iraq, where the country’s oil wealth lies, leaving Sunnis in the center with no access to petroleum resources.
While it’s true that Sunnis don’t control access to “petroleum resources”, they get an equal per capita share of their revenues. As for “effective autonomy” is a meaningless term because of the provisions in the Constitution that’s just been ratified.
Either way, analysts say it probably will not matter. After the results are in, they expect Sunnis lists to unite as one block anyway in an effort to give the community clout. “Sunnis will form alliances later, it doesn’t matter if they are on different lists now,” said Baghdad University’s Habib. “Even though they do not have a united leadership, they are all determined to make up for their absence at the last elections…Before, Shiites and Kurds proved their presence, now it is the Sunnis’ turn.”
That sounds like democracy is sinking in with the Sunnis, doesn’t it?
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRing