Ghassan Al-Attyia* critiques the mechanisms of the Iraqi National Conference The idea of convening the Iraqi National Conference was partly a result of the efforts made by Ambassador Lakhdar Labrahimi, the United Nations secretary-general's representative, to implement the Security Council's resolutions on Iraq, particularly in respect of the transfer of sovereignty. The discussions concluded with the handover of power to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's government on 28 June, prior to the conference. That had been opposed by a number of Labrahimi's Iraqi interlocutors, who urged him to convene the conference before the formation of the government, so it could play a part in legitimising it. But Labrahimi argued that there was insufficient time. The conference would convene after the government was established, he said, and aim to launch a nation-wide dialogue to promote reconciliation as well as exercising its constitutional role of overseeing the government. A successful conference, which secured the participation of a broad range of political forces -- particularly opposition forces, including the non-violent resistance -- would also help calm the flames of political violence. This would in turn pave the way for free elections to be held throughout the country in January 2005. It would be hard to ensure the success, and by extension the legitimacy, of elections held in the current climate of acute political polarisation accompanied by violence. The Afghan experience makes that clear. The promotion of dialogue and national reconciliation should, in my view, be the main reason for convening the conference, in addition to helping formulate and monitoring the implementation of executive decisions. It should not merely be about creating more of the trappings of sovereignty by establishing an Advisory Council that will only exist for five months. Nor should it be geared to compensating members of the former Interim Governing Council (IGC) who were excluded from the government. Regrettably, it was the IGC's "sharing out the cake" attitude which determined the way the Preparatory Committee was put together in its final 100-member form. The committee failed to approach opposition and marginal players in order to secure their serious, as opposed to token, participation at the conference. Instead, those in charge felt it was enough to approve the candidates that had been "proposed" by Ibrahimi and others, while preserving the dominance of the same forces that used to control the IGC. This prompted a number of the "outsiders" who were invited to join the committee to decline. Others, myself included, accepted -- in the hope that things could be put right from within the tent more effectively than from outside it. If the conference is to succeed, it must also acknowledge and learn from the experience and mistakes of the dissolved IGC. This is vital if it is to start winning the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens, the majority of whom are, according to a 10 July survey, either ignorant of or indifferent to the activities of the Preparatory Committee. Yet when the decision was taken to form the committee, 20 former IGC members who were not given government or presidency jobs were automatically made members of it. They even had seats reserved for them on the unborn Advisory Council -- whose 100 members are supposed to be elected by the 1,000 National Conference delegates. Four of the party leaders who sat on the IGC were also allowed to delegate their own representatives, a privilege not extended to other political figures. The leaders of the Daawa Party -- Ibrahim Jaafari -- and the National Accord -- Iyad Allawi -- were given the right to represent their respective parties. Add to the list the Preparatory Committee Chairman Fuad Maasoum, and the two former ministers serving on it, and at least one quarter of the membership of the body turns out to be a mere extension of the IGC. The dominance of the IGC and its constituent parties was further strengthened by the earmarking of 144 seats at the conference for Iraqi political parties. I would like to point out what the opinion polls have been indicating in this regard. The survey conducted in March by the BBC and Oxford Research International showed that the parties represented in the IGC were extremely unpopular at the time. The last opinion poll taken before the transfer of sovereignty in June -- by the Independent Institute for Administrative and Civil Society Studies (IIACSS) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) -- confirmed the low level of public trust in political parties generally. The details are enlightening. While 72.81 per cent of those surveyed said they expected things to generally improve with the transfer of power to a new interim government, 59.58 per cent wanted the ministers serving at the time to be replaced. Meanwhile, 62.03 per cent wanted the provincial governors changed, 71.88 per cent wanted new local administrators and judges to be appointed, and 70.47 per cent called for the militias to be dissolved. Asked who they would vote for if elections were held immediately, 54.95 per cent opted for individual candidates, 17.07 per cent for candidates associated with parties or prominent figures, and only 11.88 per cent for the candidates of political parties or movements. To the question "To what extent do you trust the political parties?" nearly half -- 49.84 per cent -- replied "not at all", 11.77 per cent indicated some degree of trust, and only 6.30 per cent professed complete trust. As for whether they currently supported any political party or movement, 78.02 per cent said they did not and 18.33 per cent said they did. Perhaps the most interesting conclusion drawn from the surveys was the extremely low level of contact between political parties and the general public. A full 90.83 per cent said they had not been approached at all by any party or movement since the fall of the former regime. Only 6.46 per cent had been contacted. The margin of error in such surveys is rarely above five per cent, but even if it were to be double that, the conclusions would still be unchanged. The parties have simply failed to appeal to the Iraqi public. And in the absence of a legislative body regulating them, it is extremely difficult to devise clear and specific criteria as to how they should be treated and represented. Despite all obstacles, if our objective is to overcome the crisis, there is still time for the Preparatory Committee and the National Conference to be put right. I propose that the following steps be taken: Former IGC members should give up their places on the Advisory Council and stand for election like all the other members. This would eliminate double standards in the selection of membership. Members of the Preparatory Committee should apply to themselves the same rules that were applied to the seven-member body that supervised the selection of representatives from the provinces. They must, in other words, avoid being both participants and referees. This means accepting the principle that they cannot be nominated for membership of the Advisory Council which the conference is to select. This would bolster confidence in the committee's objectivity and impartiality. The places reserved for independent figures at the conference should be used to encourage dissident and marginalised political elements to join the parliamentary game instead of employing political violence. The key criterion for selecting the independent participants should be what they can contribute to the conference, not what they can gain from it. In the conditions under which we currently live -- including the absence of security and a tight state infrastructure -- we have to acknowledge the importance of religious and tribal leaders in controlling their followers, especially when in many cases a single tribe spans the Shia-Sunni divide. The public approval with which the choice of Sheikh Ghazi Al-Yawer as head of state was greeted reflected his role as a bridge-builder rather than divider. Finally, if we are to overcome the crisis we are in, we need to start working for the common good. The forthcoming conference is an opportunity for us to set an example for our compatriots. It may be our last chance to prevent a total breakdown, or halt the slide towards civil conflict and the de facto partition of Iraq. The authority wielded by the Advisory Council that emerges from the National Conference will be more moral than constitutional, but only if it manages to win the trust of Iraqis by consolidating national harmony and civil peace. Without this trust, we will find ourselves heading either for chaos, or a new dictatorship. * The writer is a member of the Supreme Preparatory Committee for the National Conference.
