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The Legislative “Linchpin of Reconciliation” Passes in Iraq
With security comes the “space” to make legislative progress:
Iraqi lawmakers pass 3 key new laws
By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press WriterWed Feb 13, 11:23 AM ETIraq’s parliament on Wednesday passed three key pieces of legislation that set a date for provincial elections, allot $48 billion for 2008 spending, and provide limited amnesty to detainees in Iraqi custody.
The three measures were bundled together for one vote to satisfy the demands of minority Kurds who feared they might be double-crossed on their stand that the budget allot 17 percent to their semiautonomous regional government in the north.
The vote came a day after the Sunni speaker of the fragmented parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, threatened to disband the legislature, saying it was so riddled with distrust it appeared unable to adopt legislation.
Following the session, which capped weeks of wrangling over the budget and other issues, the parliament began a five-week holiday.
The draft law on provincial elections, which includes a detailed outline on devolving power to the provinces, initially had said voting would begin Oct. 1. Other details on that law and the amnesty were not immediately known.
The measures still must be approved by the three-member presidency council.
The Bush administration and Congress have sought passage of a provincial powers law as one of 18 benchmarks to promote reconciliation among Iraq’s Sunni and Shiite Arab communities and the large Kurdish minority.
This is critically important. From The Belmont Club:
This measure is vital to institutionalizing the gains won by the Surge. Iraq has long been crippled by the defective, UN-designed “closed-party list” voting system, which created political parties based on sectarian affiliation. A UN website describes why it adopted this system. It had the advantage of being easy (”no census is required”) and creating what in the UN view was an appropriate structure of political coalitions. The trouble was the system encouraged the very same fraction that took Iraq to the brink of civil war.
One of the key problems facing strategists of the Surge was to find a way to institutionalize the grassroots movement of the past year. Former insurgents would of course, be retrained and put under the discipline of the Army or Police. But what of the political leaders? The natural path was to encourage the leadership which emerged during the Surge to stand for office, which proved very difficult to do under the closed-party list system. They were dressed up with no place to go.
The impasse in Baghdad is partly the result of a logjam of sectarian interests. There are also a fair number of politicians, who because of the sectarian nature of the coalitions, are stooges of Teheran. A new election law could sweep the logjam away in a flood, with the stooges in the bargain. Electoral reform is supremely important for long term success. It is the linchpin of “reconciliation”.
The new law is one of the most sweeping reforms pushed by the Bush administration and signals that Iraq’s politicians finally, if grudgingly, may be ready for small steps toward reconciliation.
Passage of several pieces of legislation, along with a reduction in violence, were the primary goals of the U.S. troop increase that President Bush ordered early last year. Still pending and not likely to face positive action soon …
The more reason to inform the American public of the logic behind electoral reform and why it is so vital. Iraqi and American lives have taken the country back from the brink of civil war and on the approaches to normalcy. But the last steps are the most important. This is where it all pays off.
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