The fraud that provoked demands for a hand recount of Iraq's last parliamentary elections only underlined the country's turbulent balloting. The official results in last year's elections gave Iraq's ruling cliques an absolute majority of the vote on a turnout of about 43 per cent. But the unofficial results would not have been very different. The elections, the fifth since the fall of former dictator Saddam Hussein, were not a genuine exercise of democracy so much as a ritual acknowledgement of who holds power. What were supposed to mark the start of a new era for Iraq following the US-led invasion in 2003 have turned into a lingering political crisis as charges of vote-tampering by an entrenched leadership grew too loud to ignore. Some 16 years after the 2003 invasion, Iraq's elections have unveiled a damning portrait of a country run for the benefit of a powerful elite surrounded by subservient staff rather than in the interests of its people. Since Saddam was toppled in the US-led invasion, power has been shared among factions representing Iraq's three largest ethnic-sectarian components. The prime minister is a Shia Arab, the speaker of parliament a Sunni Arab, and the president is a Kurd. The elections were supposed to be a referendum on “consensus democracy,” but the much-heralded model of partnership ended in a dreadful quota-sharing system that is largely dominated by sectarian leaders and the continuation of internal conflicts. How did we get here, and how did the new ruling clique make Iraq fail its first test of democracy in the post-Saddam era? It all began with the US-led invasion when the then US Bush administration imposed its own political structures on Iraq in collaboration with the Iraqi political groups it had brought to power after Saddam's fall. The nexus of Iraq's political crisis began with the formation of the so-called Iraqi Governing Council by the US Occupation Authority that empowered a handful of exiled leaders. Little-known and exiled opposition figures became powerful politicians dependent on the mass mobilisation of their communities and turning them into power bases. As a result, northern Iraqi was held by various Kurdish forces, primarily the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) chaired by Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). The major population centres in Iraqi Kurdistan came under the control of either the KDP's or the PUK's para-military forces, the Peshmergas. In most of central and southern Iraq, the situation was just as indicative. These regions came under the control of exiled anti-Saddam Shia groups, mainly the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) of Ayatollah Baqir Al-Hakim and the Islamic Daawa Party of Ibrahim Al-Jaffari and Nouri Al-Maliki. Like in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Shia political groups that laid claim to representing the country's Shia majority enhanced their power by associating themselves with para-militaries. The Iraqi security forces were often augmented, or totally replaced, by various Shia militia groups. Meanwhile, Iraq's Sunni Arab minority that had ruled over modern Iraq since it was formed in the 1920s remained largely divided over the post-Saddam political process. Some Sunni groups participated in the new system under the US occupation, while others opted for “resistance” to the de facto rule of the Shia and Kurds. Yet, eventually a Sunni political leadership appeared that joined the Shia-Kurdish political elites in a kind of power-sharing deal, probably to reduce their losses and avoid exclusion. Inevitably, the power struggle that followed between the formerly exiled groups empowered by the US occupation and lurking local actors led to the rise of new leadership figures such as Shia cleric Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Kurdish Gorran, or Change movement. Other smaller factions and leaders emerged among each community, including para-military organisations that jockeyed for power with the governing groups. A new elite cunningly emerged to rule and dominate the “new” Iraq through the re-invented notion of “consensus democracy” and based on concepts of sectarian and ethnic power-sharing. In the end, however, the fall of the Iraqi dictator in 2003 quickly and astonishingly led to the rise of a new ruling oligarchy instead of the promised democracy that would ensure good governance, civil liberties and popular participation. In one election after another, this clique of oligarchs managed to consolidate their power, thereby jeopardising the very essence of democracy and rendering the elections an expression of contempt for any real popular mandate. They even made Iraq's troubles worse, as the country remained a hotbed of conflict infused by a culture of corruption, dishonesty and Kafkaesque inefficiency. Iraq's elite has laundered hundreds of billions of dollars obtained through graft and embezzlement outside the country over the years. Within a few years of Saddam's ouster, Iraqis began speaking of dozens of “little Saddams” defined by a kleptocracy that uses the government to rip off the country's rich natural and rentier resources to extend their personal wealth and political power. Today, a few members of this ruling clique dominate Iraq's politics, economy and cultural sphere in a typical Machiavellian style through “a combination of deceit, cunning, manipulation and cooptation.” Since Saddam's fall, powerful political leaders have controlled all key positions in the army, security forces, intelligence and bureaucracy. They appoint military commanders, ministers and senior officials to some 400 posts in government. Some of the high-powered positions are “sold” at prices as high as $20 million. Other lower positions have been systematically staffed by cronies or political appointees. As part of the sadistic operations Iraq's political elites apply, most of the MPs elected on their lists are answerable to them and vote according to their instructions. They are perfectly at ease with the use of bribery, cooptation, intimidation and violence to prevent dissent and make MPs toe the line and pass the laws the elites want. The extent of Iraq's kleptocracy became clear after the May 2018 elections when the political factions failed to agree on four ministers to hold the key portfolios of defence, the interior, justice and education. Almost all the top posts in the government and security forces are now filled by “temporary” or “acting” officials in breach of the constitution which requires a parliamentary vote on the top posts. Last week, leaders of the parliamentary blocs in Iraq rejected a list of some two dozen new ambassadors introduced by the Foreign Ministry because they wanted to name their own favourites to Iraq's diplomatic missions abroad. This brings us to the question: Who are the power elite in Iraq? It is this small group of powerful politicians that controls Iraq's dominant political, economic and military institutions. The governing elites in Iraq are comprised of high-level politicians, including the heads of the sectarian and ethnic factions, militia leaders and key businessmen. Beyond the political and economic cost of the kleptocracy that progressively paralyses the country and drains its resources, the hegemony of Iraq's ruling class creates the sort of inequality and injustice that leads to social and political unrest. Indeed, elitism in Iraq has so far resulted in political instability, and its ever-increasing authoritarianism is increasingly undermining efforts to rebuild Iraq as a unified and strong state. Along the way, Iraq will become a poorer place that is politically, economically and socially stagnant. It will be saddled with burdens that will haunt its future generations, who will be forced to repay what this ruling elite did to stay in power during these years.
