The battle between Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki and veteran politician Iyad Allawi who made a comeback to the political scene, was the focus of Arab pundits. Al-Maliki has called for a recount of votes following news of Allawi's lead in preliminary results of the parliamentary elections. Representatives of Al-Maliki's coalition, State of the Law, have said they will not recognise the election results without a recount and warned of unrest. In the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdel-Rahman Al-Rashed ruled out the possibility of Allawi's coalition, Al-Iraqiya, rigging the elections. "Unlike the rest of the coalitions, his [Allawi's] bloc has no security, partisan, administrative or religious power within the government. So how could it have managed to rig the elections?" Al-Rashed wondered. The structure of the Iraqi ruling system is parliamentary and not presidential. People do not directly elect the presidential body; they elect a majority in parliament, half plus one, or a coalition of alliances to secure the required parliamentary majority. According to Al-Rashed, one of the flaws in the new Iraqi system is that people do not directly elect but rather vote to choose parliamentarians who elect the president, prime minister and their deputies. Nevertheless, Al-Rashed believes, this system is regarded as the most suitable for a country with multiple currents, like Iraq. Accordingly, Al-Rashed said he believed the controversy over the results was not surprising but that, despite the rift, the battle was a sign of political development in Iraq. "Today we are so close to crowning either Al-Maliki or Allawi. This makes the elections more exciting for those who are following it, as it reveals clear political progress in the society of the new state," Al-Rashed wrote. Tariq Al-Homayed described Allawi's strong comeback to the political scene as "amazing". Allawi, former interim prime minister of Iraq, has not had much of a presence on the political scene for many years, pushing many to speculate that his political career had ended. Al-Homayed, who had been in contact with Allawi during these years, wrote that "[when] I met him [during the last four years] I found that he was working on a clear programme and that he seemed to be a dreamer, however, the elections today tell us that the dream is getting closer to becoming true." Al-Homayed believes that Allawi's success is a result of his secular agenda. "Today Allawi is back through the gateway of secularism that has convinced many people, based on the election results, that it is a guarantee for Iraq and the Iraqis whether they are Sunnis or Shia," Al-Homayed wrote. In the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper Ghassan Cherbel described the elections as "a great test for Iraqis." "Gone are the times when the country used to live in the grasp of a single man and a single party; a leader who is delegated by history, not ballot boxes, and who practises this delegation through approximation, alienation, deletion and elimination; a single leader who is the single voter," Cherbel wrote. According to Cherbel, the elections revealed Al-Qaeda's lack of attractiveness among Iraqi Sunnis from whom they attempted to snatch the right of talking in its name. The Sunnis did not go en masse to the ballot box, but were divided into alliances. The same applies to Shia and Kurds. "The elections gave the impression that Iraqis wish to save their country from occupation and militias," Cherbel wrote. Also in Al-Hayat, Raghida Dergham argued that Iraq will go through a delicate phase in terms of security until a consensus is reached by competing coalitions over the premiership. According to Dergham, the personality of the prime minister is important, not just for Iraqis but also for the regional players as well as the great powers, for strategic and oil-related reasons. "Indeed, oil availability in Iraq will not be complete before 2014 or 2015, and such availability is of the utmost importance in international and regional strategies, knowing that Iraq holds the world's second largest crude oil reserves and enough natural gas to appeal to major countries," Dergham wrote. Agreeing with other pundits, Dergham insisted that what can be celebrated is Iraq having eluded dispersal and division and having remained united despite divisions within it. "International and regional disputes have failed to paralyse Iraq. In fact there are high odds of it recovering to later become a model of democracy," Dergham pointed out. Dergham wrote, "this phase between the elections and reaching an agreement over the prime minister will not be easy for the Iraqis" but the good news is that "Iraq has so far emerged from the bottleneck of division and dispersal." The Palestinian issue was also the focus of many pundits. In its editorial, the Qatari newspaper Al-Rayah commented on this week's visit by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to Gaza, the second by the senior UN official since the besieged Strip was bombarded by Israeli warplanes in December 2008. "Everyone in the Gaza Strip will remember the secretary-general's sympathy with their cause and when they asked him to lift the blockade on the Gaza Strip to allow the reconstruction of the war- damaged city," the editorial wrote. "But everyone will say to the secretary-general, if they had the chance to meet him, that his promises and claims have not materialised. The suffering of Gazans has increased since his first visit," the editorial added. "The Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip hope not to see Ban Ki-Moon's tears, sympathy and emotions. They are waiting for action from the United Nations, which demands the lifting of the embargo on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip. They need to see action on the ground and to see the Israeli government forced to lift the unjust siege to start reconstruction in the war-torn strip," Al-Rayah wrote. The Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds focussed on Israel's settlement plans and the weak position the international community is taking in the matter. In its editorial, Al-Quds wrote that the Quartet represents the international community, in theory, because it includes the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. The Quartet issued a statement after an important political meeting held in Moscow recently calling for the freezing all settlement activities and condemned Israeli plans to build more settlement units. The Quartet also called for two-year negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians after which a Palestinian state within the 4 June 1967 borders is to be established. The Quartet also expressed deep concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and the urgent need to resolve the crisis. "If this is the case, why can't the Quartet actually stop settlement building, and how can the Netanyahu government continue defying the international community? Why can't the international community take steps against this rebel state which defies laws and international demands? Why don't they impose sanctions on Israel or at the least take practical measures beyond speeches and demands?" Al-Quds wrote.
