By Michael Jansen
The Irish Times
The paraphernalia of a normal election obscures rifts among Kurds, writes Michael Jansen in Sulaimaniyah
A Chill rain is pelting down on the cloud-shrouded city, turning the streets into shallow streams. Puckered and peeling posters bearing the stern visages of candidates for the Iraqi parliament are plastered on the walls of houses and shops.
Kurdish men are portrayed in suits and ties while women are bareheaded in contrast to their head-scarved Arab sisters to the south. Party flags flutter on slack wires across glistening streets choked with traffic. Convoys of cars and taxis decorated with green, yellow and blue party flags circulate through the streets, hooting horns and flashing lights.
Candidates meet constituents in small groups to explain party platforms and answer questions. Face- book is a new tool for delivering party messages ahead of balloting.
The March 7th election could very well decide whether Iraq emerges from the US occupation as a democratic country or a dictatorship. Analysts both here and abroad say Iraq could go either way. The outcome in the Kurdish autonomous region could be one of the deciding factors.
The partnership comprising the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which runs Sulaimaniyah province, and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) which dominates Irbil and Dohuk provinces, is facing its most serious challenge.
In the 2005 election this bloc won 53 seats in the 278-seat national assembly, giving the Kurds the swing vote between rival Shia religious parties, Dawa of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), headed by Ammar al- Hakim.
But last year, Goran or "Change," an offshoot of the PUK, won a quarter of the seats in the Kurdish regional assembly. Goran expects to do well in the race for the national parliament.
Change is what the people of Iraq want from this election. Citizens of the three-province Kurdish region long to see fresh faces representing them in Baghdad.
But the Shia sectarian parties, notably Dawa and SIIC that dominate the 15 Arab provinces, are determined to hang on to power. The government is reinstating 20,000 army officers who served during the period of Baathist rule but were dismissed by the US occupation administrator after the 2003 war when he dismantled the country's military and civil service.
While officials claim the reinstatements are due to an improvement in the country's financial situation, the timing of this move is highly suspicious. Most Iraqis see this as a ploy by Maliki and his allies to win votes.
At the same time the government is moving ahead with the dismissal of 580 officers and a purge of civil servants accused of being sympathetic to the outlawed Baath party. More than 440 mainly secular parliamentary candidates were banned from standing for election due to allegations that they had Baathist connections.
Although Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who backed the Shia coalition in 2005, has pledged to stay neutral this time, his operatives are said to be covertly working for Dawa and SIIC. Since he is revered by Shias, his intervention, combined with the backing of Iran, could be decisive.
Meanwhile, following the murder of 10 Christians in Mosul, Iraq's most violent city, 500 families fled their homes over the past six days for the northern Kurdish city of Dohuk.
Kurdish men are portrayed in suits and ties while women are bareheaded in contrast to their head-scarved Arab sisters to the south. Party flags flutter on slack wires across glistening streets choked with traffic. Convoys of cars and taxis decorated with green, yellow and blue party flags circulate through the streets, hooting horns and flashing lights.
Candidates meet constituents in small groups to explain party platforms and answer questions. Face- book is a new tool for delivering party messages ahead of balloting.
The March 7th election could very well decide whether Iraq emerges from the US occupation as a democratic country or a dictatorship. Analysts both here and abroad say Iraq could go either way. The outcome in the Kurdish autonomous region could be one of the deciding factors.
The partnership comprising the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which runs Sulaimaniyah province, and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) which dominates Irbil and Dohuk provinces, is facing its most serious challenge.
In the 2005 election this bloc won 53 seats in the 278-seat national assembly, giving the Kurds the swing vote between rival Shia religious parties, Dawa of prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, and the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), headed by Ammar al- Hakim.
But last year, Goran or "Change," an offshoot of the PUK, won a quarter of the seats in the Kurdish regional assembly. Goran expects to do well in the race for the national parliament.
Change is what the people of Iraq want from this election. Citizens of the three-province Kurdish region long to see fresh faces representing them in Baghdad.
But the Shia sectarian parties, notably Dawa and SIIC that dominate the 15 Arab provinces, are determined to hang on to power. The government is reinstating 20,000 army officers who served during the period of Baathist rule but were dismissed by the US occupation administrator after the 2003 war when he dismantled the country's military and civil service.
While officials claim the reinstatements are due to an improvement in the country's financial situation, the timing of this move is highly suspicious. Most Iraqis see this as a ploy by Maliki and his allies to win votes.
At the same time the government is moving ahead with the dismissal of 580 officers and a purge of civil servants accused of being sympathetic to the outlawed Baath party. More than 440 mainly secular parliamentary candidates were banned from standing for election due to allegations that they had Baathist connections.
Although Shia Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who backed the Shia coalition in 2005, has pledged to stay neutral this time, his operatives are said to be covertly working for Dawa and SIIC. Since he is revered by Shias, his intervention, combined with the backing of Iran, could be decisive.
Meanwhile, following the murder of 10 Christians in Mosul, Iraq's most violent city, 500 families fled their homes over the past six days for the northern Kurdish city of Dohuk.
