The Politburo Diktat

Sunnis Join Iraqi Constitutional Committee

NYT: Iraqi political leaders broke weeks of deadlock on Thursday, with Sunni Arabs accepting a compromise offer to increase their representation on the Shiite-led parliamentary committee that is to draft a constitution.

The agreement was a significant step forward in Iraq's political process, which has been mired in arguments between Shiite and Sunni Arabs over how many Sunnis to include on the committee. Still, it fell short of being final, as political leaders have not yet agreed which Sunnis would be chosen as members. The offer - 15 additional seats and 10 adviser positions for Sunni Arabs - was first made last week, but was rejected by many Sunnis, who said they wanted more seats. Since then, Shiite committee members sweetened the offer, saying the committee would approve the new constitution by consensus and not by vote, making the precise number of seats held by each group less important. ...

Sunni leaders plan to meet Saturday to discuss possible candidates for the panel, said Mejbel al-Sheik Isa, a member of the National Dialogue Council and one of six Sunnis who will choose the new members. The effort could prove to be a lengthy one. The Iraqi government went through a similar process in a search for suitable Sunni candidates for its cabinet, and those talks dragged on for weeks. But even if its membership is swiftly decided, it is unclear how the committee will be able to steer the unwieldy and contentious process of writing this country's first permanent legal guide without the tool of the vote. Issues like how much power to give to regional governments and the role of Islam are hotly contested, and resolving them without being able to vote might prove all but impossible.

Formally, the agreement sets up what is essentially a new 71-member body that is made up of the 55 members of the original committee and the new Sunni members, and one member of the small Sabian religious sect added last week. The original committee was made up of legislators elected in January, with 28 members from the main Shiite block, and 27 others, including 15 Kurds and a Christian. There are two Sunnis on the 55-member committee: one is independent; the other is a member of the party of Ayad Allawi, the secular Shiite former prime minister. According to the rules being drawn up, the new Sunni committee members will not be chosen from members of Parliament.

In many ways, the deal is a fresh start for the dispossessed Sunni Arabs, who have grown increasingly isolated since largely refusing to vote in elections in January. Shiites, who swept to power in the elections, have been under pressure by Americans and Europeans to offer Sunni Arabs a bigger role in politics.

"A lot can still go wrong," a Western diplomat here said Thursday night. "This is definitely a step forward but I would suggest that people not say this is a done deal until they have agreed on all the names."

I find the reporters and "diplomats" pessimism about the Iraqi electoral process rather odd (as opposed to the overall security situation). The electoral & constitutional process has been full of confrontations, brinksmanship, dragged-out negotiations, name-calling, unresolvable impasses, threats, delays, etc. Sounds just like the so-called "world's greatest deliberative body" to me.

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Raging RINOs - supporting global democracy since June 16, 2005. In Kazakhstan, too.

Posted by Commissar at June 17, 2005 04:18 PM | TraktorBack (0)