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اخشى من مرحلة فراغ دستوري في العراق
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اخشى من مرحلة فراغ دستوري في العراق
Abdul-Mahdi is gone, but Iraq still on the edge
The resignation of Adil Abdul-Mahdi is a good start, but only if the system that brought him to power is also overhauled, writes Salah Nasrawi
Since the start of the protests in Iraq on 1 October, Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi who is backed by the country’s ruling Shia elites has been manoeuvering himself into a terrible corner, one with devastating implications for the country.
A massive peaceful protest movement triggered by anger over corruption, Iran’s increasing meddling in Iraq, and the Iraqi government’s violent crackdown had put Abdul-Mahdi under immense pressure to quit.
Tens of thousands of protesters have been marching across the country over the past two months, and the protests have spread from the capital Baghdad across most of the Shia-populated southern provinces.
What began as peaceful protests have exploded into the country’s biggest political crisis since the US-led invasion in 2003 that toppled the regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein
Disgruntled at the government, mostly young and unemployed protesters have led the calls for Abdul-Mahdi to step down and for the overhaul of the country’s dysfunctional political system that they say is endemically corrupt and serves foreign powers, especially neighbouring Iran.
In response, the Iraqi security forces have killed more than 400 mostly young and unarmed protesters and wounded thousands of others. Videos circulating on social media have highlighted how deadly the security forces’ response has been, including the deployment of military-grade grenades against the protesters.
Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation, widely sought by the protesters, could now prove to be a major threat, however, since it could give rise to a dangerous power vacuum in Iraq and even existential consequences for the war-weary nation.
Abdul-Mahdi officially submitted his resignation to the Iraqi parliament on Saturday after weeks of procrastination and amid escalating violence that saw dozens of protesters killed in Baghdad, Nassiriya and Najaf, the spiritual bastion of Shia Muslims.
It also came after the country’s top Shia cleric Ayatollah Ali Sistani urged lawmakers to reconsider their support for Abdul-Mahdi’s government, which has been rocked by the street protests, strikes and blockages of roads and bridges.
In a statement Abdul-Mahdi said he was stepping down in order to “preserve the blood” of Iraqis and to prevent the country from “slipping into cycles of violence, chaos and destruction.”
Yet, Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation is unlikely to spell the end of the turmoil that has wracked the nation over the past two months. It may even risk deepening the crisis in Iraq, which has struggled to recover from post-US invasion conflicts.
With Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation, Iraq is left without a clear path towards resolving its political crisis. Even if parliament accepts his resignation, the formation of a new government could be many months away.
The roots of Iraq’s political turmoil reach back to the political order forged by the US Occupation Authority after 2003, which established a sect-based system controlled by sectarian political leaders and militias.
Part of this quota-based system allocated the symbolic post of president to the Iraqi Kurds, the speaker of the parliament to the Sunni Arabs, and the powerful post of prime minister to the majority Shias.
Under Iraq’s post-Saddam constitution, the president “shall take up the office of the prime minister” should the post become “vacant for any reason”.
The president then has 15 days to put forward a new prime minister to parliament for endorsement. The constitution obliges the president to put forward a nominee that comes from “the largest bloc” in parliament.
However, it does not specifically address the case of the resignation of a prime minister, which leaves many constitutional and political questions open for legal debate and political wrangling.
It is now up to the ruling factions to come up with ways of ending the crisis peacefully or risk leaving the pursuit of a solution to angry Iraqis on the streets.
The big question at the moment is whether these factions, which have been intent on defeating the uprising and ensuring their own survival, will act differently and reduce the risk of deeper unrest.
But for reasons that are both historical and strategic, the country’s Shia ruling elites that control the political process in conjunction with their Sunni and Kurdish allies will be hard-pressed to agree to any meaningful compromise.
Conceivably, the nomination of a new prime minister and the formation of a new government could be yet another controversial battle in which the ruling classes will attempt to sway public opinion in support of their candidates.
Parliament voted on Sunday to accept Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation, and it asked President Barham Salih to nominate a replacement. However, it also made clear that the new prime minister should be named by the largest bloc in the assembly.
This is unlikely to quell the anger of the many Iraqis who think that the country’s Shia political oligarchs are mainly responsible for the dysfunctional political system that they blame for the lingering national crisis and the current standoff.
The parliament’s move is expected to further complicate efforts to end the political and institutional crisis and to increase the uncertainty in a situation that is becoming steadily more radicalised.
Many protesters who have celebrated the departure of Abdul-Mahdi have made it clear that they want a new prime minister and ministers who are not affiliated to the political factions that have run Iraq since 2003.
Most of the protesters have said that they would not stop their demonstrations until the whole of the political class has been removed, and they have vowed to stay in the streets until the entire system has been dismantled.
After the parliamentary vote to accept Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation, some protesters put out a list of demands and preconditions for the new leader, including a pledge that he would not join or form a political party or seek to stand in the upcoming elections.
“We [the protesters] are the largest bloc,” declared one protest organiser in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, in a clear sign that the protesters consider the parliament to be irrelevant.
Much seems to be at stake. Most importantly, there is the fear that the violence will worsen if efforts to elect a new prime minister are stalemated. Even after Abdul-Mahdi quit, strains remained high in Baghdad and other Shia cities.
The protesters remain in Baghdad’s Tahrir Square and in the streets across the mainly Shia south of Iraq, and they have said they will press ahead with their demands for overhauling the entire system.
On Sunday, protesters in Najaf set fire to the Iranian consulate in the city for the second time in a week. They also burned the entrance to the shrine of Mohamed Baqir Al-Hakim, a mentor of Abdul-Mahdi and the founder of one of the key pro-Iran factions in the parliament.
This week, the protesters were joined by demonstrators in the country’s Sunni provinces that up to now have refrained from joining the protests. Many young Sunnis say they have been moved by the rising death toll among the protesters in the south.
Looming in the background is the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, which has been driven out of the country’s main cities, but is still operational and ready to attack. The present instability could provide opportunities for the group to exploit to regain some power and make a comeback.
Shia tribes have imposed a tight siege around the main prison in Nassiriya that hosts thousands of IS militants and former ruling Baath Party leaders after reports that inmates might be exploiting the chaos to plan a jail break with outside help.
The more the situation deteriorates, the more the leaders of the Iraqi Kurds in the north of the country are likely to use it as a pretext to push for independence, as they did following the rise of IS in 2014 when Kurdish forces seized Iraqi territory and the Kurdish authorities in Iraq organised a referendum to break away from the rest of the country.
The crisis may also encourage Iran to step in, either to try to shape the new Iraqi government as it has done since 2003, or to help its proxies crackdown on the protesters and end the uprising by force.
The role played by neighbouring countries and foreign powers, especially the United States, will also be worth watching. If the situation is left unchecked, it is likely that they will be able to increase their interference in Iraq.
As it stands, the situation in Iraq could lead to various scenarios, ranging from a prolonged stalemate, to intense political and sectarian struggles, to a social explosion that would make Iraq teeter on the edge.
In fact, the battle for the future of Iraq is just beginning. Abdul-Mahdi, who was originally chosen as a compromise candidate, was merely a figurehead for a government run by the Shia politicians and militias that run the country.
Abdul-Mahdi’s fall, therefore, is merely a symbolic victory for the protesters. They know that Iraq’s dilemma will not end with the fall of a prime minister, but at least the new battleground for change is now clear.
If Iraq is to move to “the better future” that the protesters have been pushing for, then much bigger changes are needed in order to prevent leaving the country on the brink.
*A version of this article appears in print in the 5 December, 2019 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
The rise and fall of Haider Al-Abadi
Iraq’s outgoing prime minister has gone from being the man who could save Iraq to one mired in ever-deeper controversy
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Not long ago, outgoing Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi was at the top of Iraqi politics and was favoured by the United States and its Western and Arab allies to lead the country through its difficulties, setting it on a new path and offering it a glimmer of hope.
However, in the four years since he assumed office Al-Abadi’s reputation has dwindled as a result of growing domestic discontent because of his failure to start rebuilding the country. Street protests turned into a bloody uprising against his government’s inefficiency and rampant corruption.
Last week, newly elected Iraqi President Barham Salih nominated Al-Abadi’s political rival Adel Abdel-Mahdi as prime minister-designate, ending months of deadlock following inconclusive parliamentary elections in May.
By nominating Abdel-Mahdi, Salih did not only end Al-Abadi’s bid for a second four-year term in office, but also ended his Islamic Dawa Party’s dream of holding onto power after producing three prime ministers since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Since his political bloc ended third in the 12 May vote with only 42 seats in the 329-member parliament, Al-Abadi’s future has remained under a cloud even as the United States escalated its efforts to get him re-elected in the face of strong resistance from Iran and its proxies in Iraq.
The result of the May elections came as a major shock to the United States and Al-Abadi’s supporters, given the status they had bestowed on him as the Iraqi leader who had defeated the Islamic State (IS) terror group and the hopes they had pinned on him to end the sectarianism that has been plaguing the country.
Contrary to such hopes and expectations, the elections reflected the belief among Iraqi voters that Al-Abadi had abysmally failed to rebuild the country following years of political turmoil, civil strife and economic failure.
The outcome of the voting seemed like a fundamental break with the high expectations of Al-Abadi just four years ago. It also indicated how far his backers had failed to understand the voters’ needs and sentiments.
Al-Abadi became Iraq’s prime minister in 2014, replacing incumbent Nouri Al-Maliki after an attempt by the latter to secure a third term in office was turned down under pressure from Washington.
The US had accused Al-Maliki of running a deeply authoritarian and sectarian government that was blamed for the crisis in Iraq.
Both Al-Abadi and Al-Maliki are Shia Muslims, and the country’s top executive post is reserved for a Shia under a power-sharing agreement put in place after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled the dictator Saddam Hussein.
When Al-Abadi was named Iraq’s prime minister, the Western powers, Iraq’s neighbours and the United Nations all lauded his appointment as a promising step forward in efforts to salvage Iraq from a looming breakdown.
Many Western experts drummed up excitement at Al-Abadi’s appointment, seeing him as the man who would be able to turn around the failing policies of Al-Maliki.
Al-Abadi was a low-key figure in the Dawa Party who had spent much of his life living in exile in Britain before returning to Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
He left Iraq for exile shortly after Saddam’s Baath Party came to power in 1968.
Many Iraqis had hoped that the British-educated Al-Abadi, the holder of a PhD in electronic engineering, would be able to bring about drastic changes to Iraq’s dysfunctional political system.
They hoped that Al-Abadi would dump Al-Maliki’s divisive legacy and form an all-inclusive government that would stifle the warlords who control a conglomerate of fiefdoms in Iraq and make way for new political forces to share in decision-making.
After his appointment as prime minister, Al-Abadi promised to change the tone of the government left behind by Al-Maliki and pledged to take the war-torn nation onto a new path of stability, reconciliation and reform.
Al-Abadi presented a six-point programme to the Iraqi parliament to beat back IS and proposed a wide-ranging development plan that included providing basic services and rebuilding Iraq’s ailing public infrastructure.
In his programme, Al-Abadi also promised Iraqis unprecedented changes to rid the government and security forces of officials suspected of corruption, malpractice and incompetence.
However, it soon turned out that Al-Abadi was being plagued with failures across every sector of government, the like of which had never been seen before.
After four years in office, Al-Abadi had failed to solve many of the country’s main problems, such as the lack of a regular power supply and of drinking water and other basic services.
Iraq’s economy, which depends primarily on oil revenues, has faced enormous challenges because of the government’s failure to conduct structural changes that could reduce the country’s dependence on oil and generate more money from other resources.
Millions of Iraqis remain unemployed, while others by and large remain dependent on various government ministries to earn a living. Meanwhile, poor economic policies, bribery and red tape discourage private businesses from providing employment.
Despite its victory over IS, Iraq continues to grapple with daily attacks by IS jihadists who in 2014 overrun many cities and captured huge swathes of land in northern Iraq.
For a nation lacking basic amenities such as power in spite of its huge energy resources and with lingering insurgency crises, the choice seemed easy to many: to wage anti-government protests.
For several weeks last summer, Iraq was roiled by protests in Basra, a city in the country’s south which provides most of its oil but whose residents have neither electricity nor clean water to counter the severe summer heat.
The violent unrest reflected increasing anger at Al-Abadi’s government and threatened to turn into a nationwide uprising before government security forces and militias managed to suppress the protests.
However, the Basra protests underlined the opposition to Al-Abadi’s policies and to his personality as well, notably his inefficiency and weaknesses.
Taken broadly, Al-Abadi’s downfall speaks volumes of the wrath of a growing force in Iraqi politics. The May elections clearly showed that the Iraqi electorate is more concerned with the performance of its politicians than with their sectarian or ethnic affiliations.
It also underscored the malaise of the Iraqi leadership and how weary many Iraqis are of leaders who lack character, competence and honesty.
Even with the naming of a new prime minister and the selection of a new Iraqi leadership, doubts remain about whether a new government will be able to turn the beleaguered nation away from the abyss that threatens its very existence.
Iraq’s post-Saddam leaders have been the targets of frequent criticism for squandering opportunities to rebuild their country into a stable and democratic state. They have shown themselves to be incapable of taking bold initiatives and adopting innovative policies in the past.
As was expected, the recent elections recycled the same corrupt and greedy elites that were empowered by the US-led invasion, putting them back in the seats of power in Baghdad where they are bound to commit the same follies as they did before.
Al-Abadi was no exception to this rule. The way the Americans and other allies boosted him as prime minister was thus a form of insurance to excuse themselves from responsibility for the failure to start rebuilding Iraq following the campaign against IS.
Incompetent leadership is not only the problem of the people who occupy positions in government in Iraq, as it is a reflection of the leadership culture in post-Saddam Iraq as a whole.
In such a culture, poor political leadership will continue to produce the bad governance that is Iraq’s greatest barrier to political and socio-economic development.
Given this reality, Iraq needs transformational leaders with strategic vision, courage, integrity and consensus-building abilities to introduce a new set of political initiatives that will transform Iraq and make it less like a conglomerate of fiefdoms.
Without such a transformation, Iraq will not survive the failures of its leaders. Instead, it will continue to suffer regression because leaders who recognise the challenges before them do not seem to exist.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 October, 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The rise and fall of Haider Al-Abadi