The date for the early Iraqi elections is approaching day after day, as they are scheduled to take place on October 10, and with the closure of the Independent High Electoral Commission for nominations and registration of political entities, sectarian quotas will appear again, similar to what happened in all previous electoral rounds.
An auditor of the lists of political parties and blocs discovers that all existing alliances are based on sectarian or nationalism, as there are purely Shiite and Sunni alliances, as well as Kurdish alliances, which puts the Iraqi street in front of an electoral situation similar to the previous elections, but with new names.
Al-Shammari considered that the parties' return to sectarian consolidation comes as an attempt to attract voters after their political failure (Al Jazeera Net)
An eternal problem
The problem of sectarianism in Iraq is one of the features of the Iraqi political process after the US invasion in 2003, and although many political parties and personalities have criticized political sectarianism over the past years and pledged to form political blocs that pass through it, the reality indicates otherwise.
The head of the Political Thinking Center, Ihssan Al-Shammari, says that the main reason for this situation is the lack of traditional political forces possessing what enables them to convince the Iraqi public after what he described as (political failure) in all previous parliamentary sessions and governments.
Al-Shammari believes in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the return to the sectarian partisan positioning comes as an attempt to attract voters and obtain their sympathy in order to reach the parliament again, indicating that what he described as (national sectarian phobia) is a priority in the electoral campaigns of these forces without excluding any of them, according to him.
As for political activist Hashem al-Jubouri and one of the most prominent participants in the popular movement that began in October 2019, he believes in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that Iraq after 2003 suffers from the lack of a political class with political capabilities that enables it to win over the public through real political and economic projects without Resort to the national sectarian entrenchment.
Al-Jubouri continues that the United States established the custom of quotas after the invasion, and thus the lack of national political competencies led to the emergence of a political class that creates crises in every election cycle in order to win over the public by intimidating them from other nationalities and sects, according to him.
Dagher considered that the political alliances in Iraq were always drawn on the basis of "an Islamist or moderate ideology" (Al-Jazeera Net)
Alliance Paths
While Munqith Dagher, the head of the Middle East division at the American Gallup Foundation for Research, refuses to call the current electoral situation political sectarian trenches, he indicates that the map of political alliances has always been drawn on the basis of "an Islamist or moderate ideology," as he put it.
In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, Dagher comments that the Islamic parties in the country have not departed from sectarian thought at all, indicating that these parties cannot ally themselves with other intellectual currents, especially on the Shiite side of these parties, according to him.
Dagher inferred on his interpretation of this, that the current alliances have drawn 3 tracks, the first of which is the Islamic parties, the second moderate, and the other the parties of the "October demonstrations", pointing out that the sectarian rhetoric has become clear through the discourse of the Islamic parties that see that they have lost their electoral support and cannot work without creating problems Sectarianism, according to him.
My request, I consider that the Iraqi political arena may witness further sectarian entrenchment (Al-Jazeera Net)
Opinions of the political blocs
For his part, MP for the Sadrist movement "Sairoun" bloc, Sabah Taloubi, believes that sectarian trenches in the current political alliances are past what they were in previous electoral rounds, but they may witness further entrenchment as a result of the alliances that will follow the emergence of the election results.
Talabi explains these entrenchments by saying that many political parties and blocs attach their presence to the persistence of internal problems, explaining in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that these blocs do not have effective political programs that can pull the country out of its crises, especially since financial and administrative corruption has become entrenched in the state with great difficulty in Real political action, as he put it.
As for the deputy of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Sherwan Al-Dubirdani, he also believes that the political alliances in the country are proceeding with the same approach in the national sectarian entrenchment, especially after many Islamic parties lost their electoral incubators, pointing out that the political process after 2003 divided political action between the three main components Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.
Al-Dubardani believes in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that 18 years in the country have not led to the fragmentation of sectarian alliances, but rather many alliances have now emerged within the main components of the country. Attract the audience.
Basma Bassim, a deputy from Nineveh governorate, agrees with this proposition, as she believes that sectarian and national entrenchment has deepened through the adoption of multiple departments within the same governorate, and thus competition has become more interchangeable between sectarian and national components and within the same components.
Basma added to Al-Jazeera Net that some political figures from the Sunni component had gone out of these entrenchments and joined and allied themselves with Kurdish and Shiite blocs during the previous years, but she was surprised that trying to get out of this entrenchment is very difficult in light of the existing political data without the other components daring to leave From this ditching.
The researcher on Iraqi political affairs, Ziyad al-Sanjari, comments that all blocs and parties reject sectarianism in Iraq except during the election period, as most of the parties and of all components cannot present what the Iraqis aspire to.
Al-Sanjari, in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, confirms that sectarianism and nationalism are strongly entrenched, inferring that since 2003 the Shiites have held the position of prime minister, while the Sunnis have the presidency of the parliament, and the Kurds are the presidency.
Huge numbers of Iraqi youth participated in the demonstrations to demand political and economic reforms (Reuters - Archive)
October parties
Regarding the popular "October movement" that was launched in October 2019, Al-Sinjari believes that this movement was distinguished by changing the popular path, but the political parties deliberately attracted some of its leaders in order to support their political fortunes, which led to the withdrawal of many protest leaders from The upcoming elections after realizing that participating in it will make them lose the goals for which they went out.
Returning to activist Hashem al-Jubouri, he also asserts that the civil parties that were formed after the 2019 demonstrations could not represent what he called the “October popular demonstrations,” revealing that a number of new political faces allied with the traditional parties and thus joined in their ideology.
Al-Jubouri does not believe that the upcoming elections will witness a change in public policies in the country, especially since the Iraqi government has failed in the process of reforms demanded by the demonstrators, including the approval of the political parties law and the control of fugitive weapons.
Returning to Dagher, he believes that the counter-attack on the Tishreen demonstrations led to their political dispersion, and thus it may not be able to get more than 5 parliamentary seats.
As for Ihssan Al-Shammari, he believes that the Tishreen movement cannot be reduced to the emerging parties or figures allied with the traditional parties, and that many of the leaders of the protest movement did not participate in the elections.
He continues in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that the traditional parties have succeeded in penetrating the popular movement, as well as establishing parties he described as "shadow parties" under names close to the slogans of Tishreen, in an attempt to confuse Tishreen's supporters and deceive the Iraqi public.