Early Vote May Not Be Iraq’s Best Medicine

BAGHDAD —  They preceded a decade of bloodshed in Algeria. In 1997, Albania teetered under their strain. They even threw Iraqi Kurdistan, often touted as a model for the future of this country, into years of armed clashes.

Far too often, history has shown that democratic elections -- when pushed too hard or too soon in troubled regions -- do not forestall violence. Rather, they may help incite it.

As Iraq lurches toward democracy, the country’s Shiite Muslim majority has pushed hard for early elections. But there is a growing unease that a hasty vote may only deepen the divides between Iraq’s ethnic and religious sects, possibly providing the spark for a civil war.

Last fall, the potential for such a conflict was rarely mentioned in Iraq. Today, the prospect of violence has entered into the formal political debate as Iraqi groups jostle over who will assume authority after the planned U.S. hand-over June 30.

“If people don’t accept the results [of an election], there will be civil war. That’s what I’m afraid of,” Mahmoud Othman, a Sunni Muslim Kurd and independent member of the Iraqi Governing Council.

Of course, the potential for violence is no excuse to delay democracy in Iraq, election experts say. Free elections don’t cause civil wars, they argue. However, elections may bring already simmering disputes to a head.

“If you haven’t sorted out the underlying conflicts, elections can actually make things worse,” said David Carroll, head of the democracy program at the Atlanta-based Carter Center, a nonprofit election-monitoring group founded by former President Carter. “There has to be some sort of consensus among the major players and parties. Otherwise, elections are bound to be counterproductive and lead to instability.”

Northern Iraq already has seen it happen.

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Kurdish leaders in the north received U.S. protection to establish a broadly autonomous zone, and elections were held a year later.

Election day went off without a hitch. A team of international observers judged the vote free and fair. There was no violence, no protests, no rioting.

But the two major parties -- both secular and with comparable ideologies -- split the vote and were forced to embark on a fragile power-sharing agreement. By 1994, their power struggle had sparked a brutal civil war in the region, killing thousands.

“It’s not just a matter of security on election day,” Othman said. “It’s a matter of political stability.”

Shiite leaders reject such concerns as an excuse to postpone free elections and delay what they say is their rightful ascension into power. Shiites, who make up an estimated 60% of Iraq’s population and were brutally oppressed under the previous regime, are confident of winning a majority in elections.

Followers of Muqtader Sadr, a firebrand Shiite cleric, are stepping up their rhetoric, calling predictions of a civil war a red herring and noting that free elections are routinely held in hot spots around the world despite war, assassinations and crime.

“Even so, they are having elections,” pro-Sadr cleric Nasser Sadi told thousands of followers in Baghdad during Friday prayers. “Why shouldn’t there be elections in Iraq? What is the crippling factor?”

So far, the leading Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who has millions of followers in Iraq, has called for cool heads during the debate. But last week, Sistani accused the U.S. of stalling on elections.

Sistani’s views are vital because he has the power to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, urging his followers to revolt.

Discontent over the timing of elections is spurring angry protests around the Shiite-dominated south.

“We insist upon a timetable for elections,” said Sadruddin Qubanchi, a prominent cleric in the holy city of Najaf.

Experts say such preelection jockeying is common in post-conflict regions.

“Elections push everyone to move harder and faster to establish a majority, and that creates violence,” said Nat Kern, president of Foreign Reports, a consulting firm specializing in the Middle East.

Lakhdar Brahimi, a former foreign minister in Algeria, has seen firsthand how disputed elections can tear a nation apart. Algeria erupted into civil war in 1992 after the military voided a general election when it became clear that an Islamist party was poised to win. More than 100,000 people have died.

U.N. special envoy Brahimi, who was sent to determine the feasibility of elections in Iraq, recently expressed hope that Iraqis could avoid the fate of Algeria.

“I would like to appeal to every Iraqi in every part of Iraq,” Brahimi said. “Civil wars happen because people are reckless ... because groups think more of themselves than they do of the benefit of their country.”

Like Algeria, Iraq faces its own deep-seated struggle between Islamists, who back establishing a government rooted in Islamic law and beliefs, and secularists, who fear that the Shiite majority may trample individual rights and install an Iranian-style theocracy.

“My fear of the elections is that this ... might be a pretext for major ethnic and religious clashes,” said Iyad Allawi, a Shiite member of the Governing Council.

In addition, Iraq’s minority Sunni Muslims, who lost their privileged position after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, are unlikely to accept a government that excludes their views. Already, Baath Party loyalists are suspected of involvement in numerous attacks against Shiites, police stations and representatives of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council.

U.S. intelligence officials believe that many of the suicide bombings and other attacks are part of a plot to incite a sectarian civil war in Iraq, pitting Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds against one another.

U.S. officials recently released a 17-page letter that they said was written by suspected Al Qaeda associate Abu Musab Zarqawi, allegedly pleading for help in attacking Iraqi Shiites to incite them to “revolt” against the Sunni population.

“Souls will perish and blood will be spilled,” the letter states.

L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator for Iraq, accused terrorists of trying to spark a “chaotic bloodbath. They see it as their only hope to retrieve an otherwise hopeless situation. They explicitly want to set Iraqi [against] Iraqi in a cynical effort to kindle sectarian violence.”

The debate over what sort of transitional government to install after the U.S. turns over authority June 30 will serve as a critical dress rehearsal for elections, experts said. If the various parties fail to reach a consensus or if some key players refuse to accept the outcome, it may signal that it’s too early for permanent elections.

Already, the U.N. has indicated its willingness to help fashion a transitional government and oversee later elections. Brahimi is expected to return to Iraq next month to work on a plan.

The presence of more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq presents another wild card. U.S. forces could prevent bloodshed, but they might also serve as a lightning rod, said Carroll of the Carter Center.

“On the one hand, a precondition to elections is security,” he said. “But at the same time, you don’t want people to feel intimidated by a military presence. That’s going to be a tough one to balance.”

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Times staff writer Sebastian Rotella contributed to this report.

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In stories after April 9, 2004, Shiite cleric Muqtader Sadr is correctly referred to as Muqtada Sadr.

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