Public Anger Aimed at Iraq Politicians
Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times
Iraq’s new parliament met for its inaugural session for 18 minutes in Baghdad on Monday .
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: June 14, 2010
BAGHDAD — Even as Iraq’s Parliament convened Monday, three long months of court challenges, recounts and disqualifications after it was elected, Saif Ali, a shopkeeper, was venting his anger at Iraqi politicians.
It was 119 degrees, and he had only a few hours of electricity.
“Frankly, the politicians are just wearing us out,” he said. “Unemployment? Electricity? Housing? Since 2003 — for seven years now — no one has solved it yet.”
His brow sweaty, Mr. Ali shook his head. “Even the water is dirty.”
Lawmakers hailed Monday’s 18-minute session as a milestone, however symbolic, in forging a government. Perhaps. But officials, diplomats and politicians themselves worry that the frustration of Mr. Ali and others may pose, for the first time, a bigger threat to that fledgling political process than sectarian strife or a diminished but resilient insurgency.
Except for the Kurdish parties and the followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a populist Shiite cleric, few politicians have any real grass-roots support to help negotiate an increasingly angry public that has welcomed better security but now demands better lives. In almost any conversation, cynicism runs deep toward a political class imbued with an opportunism many see as common to almost every Iraqi government since the monarchy was overthrown in 1958.
“There is clearly a divide,” said Ryan C. Crocker, the former American ambassador to Iraq and a longtime diplomat in the Middle East.
He described it as “elitist authoritarianism that basically ignores the people.”
“Right now, what I’m concerned about is the persistence of the political culture in which the governors simply do not really care about the governed,” he said. “Saddam didn’t invent it. This is part of a persistent Iraqi political culture, and it did not produce a happy state after 1958 at any point, and I would worry that it will not now.”
Iraq’s politics have proved prone to deadlock and brinkmanship; the last government took six months to form. But Monday’s session stood as a microcosm of a tangled political process in which nearly every step, procedural or otherwise, is contested.
Kurdish lawmakers insisted that the oath be read in both Arabic and Kurdish. (It was, eventually.) None of Iraq’s leaders spoke at the session because, politicians said, their opponents had demanded equal time. Loyalists of Mr. Sadr, whose militia twice fought the American military in 2004, threatened to walk out of the session if Christopher R. Hill, the American ambassador, attended. (In the end, they did not.)
“You can expect anything at any time,” said Omar al-Mashhadani, a spokesman for the departing Parliament speaker, Ayad al-Samarrai, shaking his head.
From Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on down, politicians are defensive about the protracted negotiations, even as they acknowledge the public’s growing anger.
Real issues are at stake, they say — namely, who will govern Iraq as the United States withdraws nearly 90,000 troops by the end of 2011. Whatever coalition eventually coalesces will help determine the formula by which the Shiite majority governs a country deeply divided by sect and ethnicity. The eventual prime minister will face attempts to shift power from his office to the cabinet and Parliament, delineating the state’s authority.
The plethora of factions makes the process harder, too. Everyone is negotiating with everyone, with varying degrees of sincerity and hardly any success.
“There is no real progress up to now, nothing real,” said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a vice president and candidate for prime minister. “We are still at a standstill.”
Some people, though, have angrily termed the negotiations theater, and there is indeed an element of that. Indecision is so ingrained that President Jalal Talabani, who has the right to convene Parliament, issued a statement soliciting opinions on the date he should choose. Mr. Maliki’s Shiite allies smuggled his Sunni opponents a video that seemed to undermine Mr. Maliki’s argument to form the next government.
Then there is Ayad Allawi, the frequently flying leader of a secular and Sunni Muslim coalition that won the most seats in the March 7 election.
“I challenge anyone to tell me that Allawi has stayed more than seven days in Iraq since the election,” said Ali al-Mousawi, a spokesman for Mr. Maliki’s government. Mr. Allawi’s aides defend his travel as necessary to help repair Iraq’s relations with its neighbors.
Mr. Abdul Mahdi wondered whether the very clubbiness of the politicians made it harder to make decisions. As a boy, he swam with Ahmad Chalabi in the pool of Mr. Chalabi’s father. Both attended the same school as Mr. Allawi. In exile in the 1970s, Mr. Talabani and Mr. Abdul Mahdi circulated in the same Palestinian circles in Lebanon.
“Because of friendlier relations, courtesies, sometimes real issues are not raised,” Mr. Abdul Mahdi said. “You think your friend is making a mistake, and you can’t be so frank with him.”
His sense of generosity is not shared beyond the Green Zone, where everyone from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric, to merchants along the barricaded streets of Baghdad has warned of the discontent. The refrain of their conversation is masalih, or “interests” — and politicians are working for their own.
I’m worn out, the weather is hot, business is bad, and so is the government,” shouted Mohammed Ali, a merchant along Palestine Street in Baghdad, as he wagged his finger. “The subject is over. That’s it. Can I tell you anything more than that?”
A deep current of conspiracy and suspicion runs through such sentiments, much like what was heard during the early days of the American occupation in 2003. Rarely are individual politicians blamed. Often it is the entire state, its institutions having failed to deliver the most basic services or to ameliorate the siegelike sense to the fortified city.
“They know our problems, but they don’t care,” said Alaa Sabah, shopping on a trash-filled street. “The people who elected them? They don’t figure into their thinking.”
Mr. Hill, the ambassador, suggested that an angry public might force politicians to reach an agreement on a coalition sooner than they otherwise would have.
“They’re going to have to solve that or be judged as having allowed their personal ambitions get in the way of the public’s interests,” he said.
But like many others, Riyadh Mehdi simply saw a disconnect between government and the governed. Owner of a clothing store, he said he had no faith in the Parliament seated Monday.
“When they hand out the salaries, every single one of them will be there,” he said. “When there’s a session on the problems of Iraq, you’ll be able to count the number who attend with both hands. Seven, eight. They’re there for money and power. That’s it.”
He paused, looking out at a sun-drenched street.
“I swear,” he said, “a monarchy would be better than this republic.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world
Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times
Iraq’s new parliament met for its inaugural session for 18 minutes in Baghdad on Monday .
By ANTHONY SHADID
Published: June 14, 2010
BAGHDAD — Even as Iraq’s Parliament convened Monday, three long months of court challenges, recounts and disqualifications after it was elected, Saif Ali, a shopkeeper, was venting his anger at Iraqi politicians.
It was 119 degrees, and he had only a few hours of electricity.
“Frankly, the politicians are just wearing us out,” he said. “Unemployment? Electricity? Housing? Since 2003 — for seven years now — no one has solved it yet.”
His brow sweaty, Mr. Ali shook his head. “Even the water is dirty.”
Lawmakers hailed Monday’s 18-minute session as a milestone, however symbolic, in forging a government. Perhaps. But officials, diplomats and politicians themselves worry that the frustration of Mr. Ali and others may pose, for the first time, a bigger threat to that fledgling political process than sectarian strife or a diminished but resilient insurgency.
Except for the Kurdish parties and the followers of Moktada al-Sadr, a populist Shiite cleric, few politicians have any real grass-roots support to help negotiate an increasingly angry public that has welcomed better security but now demands better lives. In almost any conversation, cynicism runs deep toward a political class imbued with an opportunism many see as common to almost every Iraqi government since the monarchy was overthrown in 1958.
“There is clearly a divide,” said Ryan C. Crocker, the former American ambassador to Iraq and a longtime diplomat in the Middle East.
He described it as “elitist authoritarianism that basically ignores the people.”
“Right now, what I’m concerned about is the persistence of the political culture in which the governors simply do not really care about the governed,” he said. “Saddam didn’t invent it. This is part of a persistent Iraqi political culture, and it did not produce a happy state after 1958 at any point, and I would worry that it will not now.”
Iraq’s politics have proved prone to deadlock and brinkmanship; the last government took six months to form. But Monday’s session stood as a microcosm of a tangled political process in which nearly every step, procedural or otherwise, is contested.
Kurdish lawmakers insisted that the oath be read in both Arabic and Kurdish. (It was, eventually.) None of Iraq’s leaders spoke at the session because, politicians said, their opponents had demanded equal time. Loyalists of Mr. Sadr, whose militia twice fought the American military in 2004, threatened to walk out of the session if Christopher R. Hill, the American ambassador, attended. (In the end, they did not.)
“You can expect anything at any time,” said Omar al-Mashhadani, a spokesman for the departing Parliament speaker, Ayad al-Samarrai, shaking his head.
From Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki on down, politicians are defensive about the protracted negotiations, even as they acknowledge the public’s growing anger.
Real issues are at stake, they say — namely, who will govern Iraq as the United States withdraws nearly 90,000 troops by the end of 2011. Whatever coalition eventually coalesces will help determine the formula by which the Shiite majority governs a country deeply divided by sect and ethnicity. The eventual prime minister will face attempts to shift power from his office to the cabinet and Parliament, delineating the state’s authority.
The plethora of factions makes the process harder, too. Everyone is negotiating with everyone, with varying degrees of sincerity and hardly any success.
“There is no real progress up to now, nothing real,” said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a vice president and candidate for prime minister. “We are still at a standstill.”
Some people, though, have angrily termed the negotiations theater, and there is indeed an element of that. Indecision is so ingrained that President Jalal Talabani, who has the right to convene Parliament, issued a statement soliciting opinions on the date he should choose. Mr. Maliki’s Shiite allies smuggled his Sunni opponents a video that seemed to undermine Mr. Maliki’s argument to form the next government.
Then there is Ayad Allawi, the frequently flying leader of a secular and Sunni Muslim coalition that won the most seats in the March 7 election.
“I challenge anyone to tell me that Allawi has stayed more than seven days in Iraq since the election,” said Ali al-Mousawi, a spokesman for Mr. Maliki’s government. Mr. Allawi’s aides defend his travel as necessary to help repair Iraq’s relations with its neighbors.
Mr. Abdul Mahdi wondered whether the very clubbiness of the politicians made it harder to make decisions. As a boy, he swam with Ahmad Chalabi in the pool of Mr. Chalabi’s father. Both attended the same school as Mr. Allawi. In exile in the 1970s, Mr. Talabani and Mr. Abdul Mahdi circulated in the same Palestinian circles in Lebanon.
“Because of friendlier relations, courtesies, sometimes real issues are not raised,” Mr. Abdul Mahdi said. “You think your friend is making a mistake, and you can’t be so frank with him.”
His sense of generosity is not shared beyond the Green Zone, where everyone from Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s most powerful Shiite cleric, to merchants along the barricaded streets of Baghdad has warned of the discontent. The refrain of their conversation is masalih, or “interests” — and politicians are working for their own.
I’m worn out, the weather is hot, business is bad, and so is the government,” shouted Mohammed Ali, a merchant along Palestine Street in Baghdad, as he wagged his finger. “The subject is over. That’s it. Can I tell you anything more than that?”
A deep current of conspiracy and suspicion runs through such sentiments, much like what was heard during the early days of the American occupation in 2003. Rarely are individual politicians blamed. Often it is the entire state, its institutions having failed to deliver the most basic services or to ameliorate the siegelike sense to the fortified city.
“They know our problems, but they don’t care,” said Alaa Sabah, shopping on a trash-filled street. “The people who elected them? They don’t figure into their thinking.”
Mr. Hill, the ambassador, suggested that an angry public might force politicians to reach an agreement on a coalition sooner than they otherwise would have.
“They’re going to have to solve that or be judged as having allowed their personal ambitions get in the way of the public’s interests,” he said.
But like many others, Riyadh Mehdi simply saw a disconnect between government and the governed. Owner of a clothing store, he said he had no faith in the Parliament seated Monday.
“When they hand out the salaries, every single one of them will be there,” he said. “When there’s a session on the problems of Iraq, you’ll be able to count the number who attend with both hands. Seven, eight. They’re there for money and power. That’s it.”
He paused, looking out at a sun-drenched street.
“I swear,” he said, “a monarchy would be better than this republic.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/15/world/middleeast/15iraq.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world