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WikiLeaks: 2010-01-25: 10BAGHDAD185: Opportunities and Peril...
VZCZCXYZ0006
PP RUEHWEB
DE RUEHGB #0185/01 0251312
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 251312Z JAN 10
FM AMEMBASSY BAGHDAD
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6273
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE
C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 000185
SIPDIS
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/12/2020
TAGS: KDEM KIRF PGOV IZ
SUBJECT: OPPORTUNITIES AND PERILS FOR MINORITIES IN
NATIONAL ELECTIONS
REF: A. 09 BAGHDAD 3298
¶B. 09 BAGHDAD 2758
¶C. 09 BAGHDAD 2911
Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Gary A. Grappo for Reasons
1.4 (b) and (d).
¶1. (C) SUMMARY: Christian political and religious leaders
tell us that while they had hoped for more than a five-seat
quota in the national elections law, they view March 7
elections as an opportunity to expand their representation
and influence within the Parliament. In contrast, leaders of
the Sabean-Mandean, Shabak, and Yezidi communities have
expressed concern that larger political blocs will try to
"steal" their seats with candidates nominally from their
communities, but actually loyal to the blocs. Regardless of
the outcome, the inclusion of minority quotas in the national
elections is likely to build on gains made throughout 2009 in
expanding minority participation in Iraqi politics. END
SUMMARY.
------------------------------
MINORITIES IN THE ELECTION LAW
------------------------------
¶2. (C) The amendment to the national elections law that
passed the Parliament on December 6 and will govern the
national parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7
includes eight seats reserved for Iraq's minority
communities, including five for Christians, one for
Sabean-Mandeans, one for Yezidis and one for Shabaks. Of
these eight reserved seats, the amendment stipulates that the
five Christian seats be treated as a single district, meaning
that Iraqis from across the country (and outside it) will be
allowed to vote for their preferred candidate, regardless of
where they reside. In contrast, voters for the remaining
three seats are limited to a particular governorate --
Baghdad for the Sabean-Mandeans and Ninewa for the Shabaks
and Yezidis -- a difference that will impact the political
calculus of these particular minority communities. The
introduction of the minority quota system into the national
elections law (a system that did not exist in the 2005
national parliamentary elections) builds on the precedent
established in provincial and Kurdistan Region elections held
during 2009. In those elections, minorities were elected to
serve on the Provincial Councils of Baghdad (one Christian
and one Sabean-Mandean); Ninewa (two Christians, one Shabak,
nine Yezidis) and Basra (one Christian) as well as the
Kurdistan Regional Parliament (six Christians, one Yezidi).
In addition, one Christian also serves on the Provincial
Councils of Dohuk and Kirkuk although the elections for these
bodies took place in 2006.
-------------------------------
CHRISTIANS IN A STRONG POSITION
-------------------------------
¶3. (C) The five-quota seats for Christians guarantees that
the community's representation in the next Parliament will
double given that there are currently only two Christian MPs
in the current COR. Nevertheless, some Christian leaders
have complained that the demographic weight of their
community should have entitled them to more guaranteed seats.
On December 15, Armenian Archbishop Avak Asadourian told the
Ambassador and A/S Feltman that the Council of Bishops had
formally petitioned the Parliament for a quota of 12 seats
based on a calculation of one representative for every
100,000 Iraqi Christians believed to exist (ref A). On
January 13, Fahmi Mansour, the head of the KRG-based Popular
Council of Chaldeans, Syriacs and Assyrians (one of the two
largest Christian political entities competing in the
elections), told Poloff that his party had asked the
Parliament for a quota of 15 seats. Poloff countered by
pointing out that several Christian leaders are running for
Qpointing out that several Christian leaders are running for
seats outside of the quota system with larger political
entities such as State of Law (Prime Minister Wijdan Selim
and PM advisor Georges Bakoos), the Iraqi National Alliance
(Khaled Mirza), and the Kurdish Democratic Party (George
Kako), which could allow the Christian community to expand
its representation beyond the quota of five members (ref B).
¶4. (C) No matter how many Christians are ultimately elected,
their numbers are unlikely to give them significant influence
on legislation in the 325-member Parliament. Nevertheless,
Christian MP Yonadam Kanna (the head of the other large
Christian political party, the Assyrian Democratic Movement)
told Poloff on January 5 that the major benefit of having
five members will be the ability to place Christians on all
of the Parliamentary committees that impact their community,
such as Education, which the two current MPs have been unable
to cover alone. Both Kanna and Mansour predicted that their
respective party would claim three of the five reserved
seats. Kanna told Poloff that he had maneuvered in
Parliament to make the Christian seats a single Iraq-wide
constituency vice multiple districts to prevent Mansour's
party from easily claiming seats from the Kurdistan Region by
asking its Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) allies to have
some of its Muslim members vote for the Popular Council to
swing the election. (COMMENT: One of the drawbacks of the
quota system is that it does not ensure that only members of
the protected community vote for that community's seats. In
the July KRG elections, representatives of the Assyrian
Democratic Movement complained that the KDP had instructed
Muslim party members to vote for KDP loyal Christians. In
fact, Shabak MP Hunein al-Qaddo told Poloff January 11 that
he had warned Kanna not to make the Christian seats a single
district because it was theoretically possible for the KDP to
direct enough votes to the Popular Council to enable them to
claim all five seats. END COMMENT.) Regardless of what the
KDP decides to do, the creation of a single district for the
Christian quota has increased the importance of
out-of-country voting (OCV) in the election with both major
Christian parties planning on campaigning actively during
February in both neighboring countries and the United States.
------------------------------------
SABEAN-MANDEANS: GLASS AS HALF EMPTY
------------------------------------
¶5. (C) After months of lobbying Iraq's political leaders,
Sabean-Mandean leaders succeeded in their efforts to include
a reserved seat for their community in the next Parliament
(ref C). On December 30, Poloff met with three leaders of
the Sabean-Mandean community -- Mandean Endowment Director
Tomah Zahroon, Mandean Council Secretary Hussein al-Zuhairy,
and Ambassador Matheel al-Sabti -- to discuss the first
election of a Mandean to the national Parliament. Despite
their appreciation for Embassy efforts to secure the Mandeans
a seat in Parliament in spite of the small size of their
community -- estimated at less than 10,000 persons -- the
Mandean leaders expressed frustration that their reserved
seat would only appear on the ballot for Baghdad and not on
ballots country-wide like the Christians. Zahroon asserted
that 70 percent of the Mandean community lived outside of
Baghdad and that the law's stipulation that only voters in
Baghdad province could cast ballots for the Mandean seat
effectively disenfranchised those members of the community
from selecting their own representative.
¶6. (C) Zuhairy said that the Mandean community in Baghdad had
nominated one candidate for the seat, Khaled Rumy, who had
the blessing of its spiritual leader, Sheikh Sittar Hillo,
and that the predominantly Shia coalition Iraqi National
Alliance (INA) had pledged its support to get Rumy elected if
he would side with its bloc in the next Parliament. The
Mandean leaders were all adamant that they would not ally
with any larger political blocs and said that they had turned
down the INA's offer, but were now afraid that the INA would
capture the seat by assisting one of three other registered
Mandean candidates in exchange for INA support. To prevent
this scenario from occurring, Zuhairy said that Mandean
leaders believe that Mandeans from across Iraq should be
allowed to vote for the quota seat. They said they had taken
their complaint to the Independent High Electoral Commission
(IHEC) as well as to UNAMI SRSG Melkert, but with no result.
Now the Mandean leaders plan to initiate an action in the
courts on the grounds that the election law discriminated
Qcourts on the grounds that the election law discriminated
among the different minority groups in terms of its treatment
of the reserved seats. Poloff commented that it was unlikely
that the Parliament would be able to amend the election law
at this time.
--------------------------------------------- ---
SHABAKS AND YEZIDIS WARY OF KURDISH MACHINATIONS
--------------------------------------------- ---
¶7. (C) As with the Mandean leaders, the current
representatives of the Shabak and Yezidi communities within
the Parliament have also expressed concern about larger
political blocs targeting their seat. On January 11, Shabak
MP Hunein al-Qaddo told Poloff that the INA had offered him
the prospect of an alliance, but he had turned it down.
Qaddo said that while the INA was running a Shabak candidate
in Ninewa, his real concern was with the KDP-allied Shabak
candidate. Qaddo asserted that the KDP was putting a lot of
resources into this candidate and that he feared Kurdish
voters in areas without Shabaks would be directed to vote for
the KDP-candidate to make him the winner. Qaddo opined that
if IHEC were fair, it would not allow votes for the Shabak
seat from areas like Sinjar or Shaykhan where no Shabaks
reside. He feared that local peshmerga forces in the
disputed areas might deny him freedom of movement in order to
carry out his campaign. On January 18, Yezidi MP Amin Farhan
told Poloff that he too feared that his movement might be
restricted by the peshmerga and that he was also concerned
that one of the candidates backed by the Kurds would succeed
in capturing the Yezidi quota seat. Farhan said that he
thought the presence of the peshmerga in all of the Yezidi
areas of Ninewa would naturally tilt the vote toward the
Kurdish-backed candidates.
¶8. (C) COMMENT: The fact that many of Iraq's major political
factions have reached out to minority communities to expand
their influence in the next Parliament is an encouraging sign
that minorities are being drawn into the political process.
However, Iraq's minority communities also face the prospect
of not having their preferred candidates elected by making a
principled (but perhaps foolhardy) stand against making
election alliances. Regardless of who is elected, the
expansion of the number of minorities who will serve in the
next Parliament should further cement gains that have been
made over the past year to ensure that Iraq's minority
communities have a political voice. The political impact of
those gains will only become clearer with the results, which
will indicate whether minorities have gotten their preferred
candidates into office or were overrun by the big alliances.
END COMMENT.
HILL
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