Iraq Vote a Priority for Shiite Leader

Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has launched a massive get-out-the-vote campaign for Iraq’s upcoming election, determined to ensure that Shiites have a chance to win the power that he believes rightfully belongs to the nation’s majority Muslim sect.

Iraq’s electoral commission announced Sunday that the poll to elect a transitional parliament would be held Jan. 30, although speculation has deepened that the vote will be postponed.

Sistani is acutely aware that this is a critical juncture for Iraq’s Shiites, analysts say.

“Sistani thinks that this is the Shiites’ moment to reverse the last 80 years of being out of power -- some would say the last 1,400 years,” said a senior Iraqi government official, who asked not to be named. Shiites largely lost power to Sunni Muslims in 1920, when they refused to participate in a government under British rule.

Since a U.S.-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime last year, Sistani has been a strong proponent of early, direct elections, trying to promote Iraqi nationalism as well as Shiite political interests. He has met with Kurds, most of whom are Sunnis, and Christians as well as secular and religious Shiites.

From homey neighborhood mosques to the sprawling shrines that are the center of Shiite religious life, the vast Shiite hierarchy with ties to Sistani is hard at work.

The mosques’ leaders are following the fatwa, or religious ruling, issued by Sistani in mid- October requiring every man and woman to vote. The spiritual leader elevated the duty to vote to the same level as fasting during Ramadan and praying five times a day -- among the five most sacred obligations for observant Muslims.

“Without a fatwa from Sistani, it’s difficult for people to participate in this election because of the threats and apathy about the future. But if we have a religious edict, that definitely has an important impact,” said Jabber Habib, a professor of political science at Baghdad University. “With such a fatwa issued, I can’t imagine anyone [Shiite] not voting.”

Sistani, a cleric who claims to have no involvement in politics, is arguably the most important figure on the Iraqi political stage. And he may be the key to whether the election is held on time.

The debate over the election’s timing will pit Sistani and the millions who follow him against those in the current government who remain willing to consider putting off the vote.

If he decides -- as is likely -- that he cannot support a delay, Iraqi politicians will be hard put to endorse one. If they push for a postponement over his objections, they will have to be prepared for civil disobedience on a massive scale.

“He either is going to be unable to stop street protests or he will encourage them,” said Joost Hiltermann, director of the International Crisis Group’s Amman, Jordan, office, which handles research on Iraq.

Hiltermann noted that when Sistani was distressed last winter at the U.S. proposal to have caucuses select the interim National Assembly, he allowed his lieutenants to call hundreds of thousands into the streets.

Iraqi and U.S. officials who will decide whether to postpone elections must consider security conditions in key regions of Iraq.

In Fallouja, it is difficult to imagine how to prepare for an election after the intense U.S. assault last week drove out most residents and leveled much of the city.

Although some U.S. military and election officials say that people who are registered through their food ration cards will be able to vote elsewhere, many Fallouja residents are staying in Sunni neighborhoods where there is widespread opposition to voting.

More troubling are cities such as Mosul, which has more than 1 million people, the majority of them Sunnis. There, intimidation is expected to prove a serious problem, with many people possibly choosing not to vote rather than risk violence to themselves and their families.

It is widely agreed that an election without significant participation by Sunnis would lack legitimacy, because it would exclude them from any role in writing a constitution. The parliament that is to be elected in January is to write the document, which could govern Iraq for years.

But it is unclear whether a three- to four-month delay would significantly increase Sunni voter turnout, and it would hand the insurgents a victory by allowing them to derail the political process.

Sistani appears to have similar concerns, said people familiar with his thinking.

“Sistani has been very clear ... he believes the delay in holding elections until now has contributed to the rise in violence. We think if elections were held last year perhaps we would be living in a safer environment today,” said Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist who fled Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s reign. With Sistani’s backing, Shahristani is organizing a political alliance that includes a large number of independents.

The only way to stem the violence, Sistani believes, is “through having an elected National Assembly that can negotiate a timetable for the multinational forces to end the occupation,” Shahristani said.

Ridha Taqi, director of political relations for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a leading Shiite political party, said Sistani would “reject any suggestion to delay the election.”

Many Sunnis, however, would like a delay because of the difficulty of holding an election in the unstable Sunni areas. Sistani has come in for sharp criticism from a number of Sunnis for not condemning the U.S attack on Fallouja.

Sistani has ordered committees in every region to coordinate preparations for the January election. But his word is followed most closely in Shiite areas.

In the Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad, where the crowded streets are closed to traffic and religious booksellers wedge their wares between gold sellers and large cloth shops catering to Iranian pilgrims, fliers urging people to vote cover the walls. Interspersed are posters of Sistani, the map of Iraq and the words of his fatwa on voting.

“The ballot box is the only guarantee of the rights of all Iraqis. Let us make every drop of Tigris water the property of 25 million Iraqis. Let us make each date palm the property of 25 million Iraqis. Let the future of 25 million be decided in balloting,” said one ubiquitous notice.

Another was more straightforward. “No to dictatorship; no to foreign occupation; a credible election is the only way for Iraqis to move their country in a just direction.”

On Sunday, loudspeakers blasted election messages: “Do you know what you are voting for? Are you voting for a president? Are you voting for a prime minister? What are you voting for?”

(Iraqis will vote for neither a president nor a prime minister; they will vote for a National Assembly, which in turn will select a prime minister and president.)

At Bratha mosque, a large Shiite mosque with ties to Sistani, the preacher, Jalaluddin Saghir, is an ardent proponent of the election. Two weeks ago, he started making it a central topic of his Friday sermon.

“To the people who are boycotting the elections: If you want to boycott, all right, but let the others decide their fate,” Saghir said.

But like Sistani, he wants to be sure that his people -- Iraqi Shiites -- know their vote will count.

“Some people say that the Shiites are not united. Don’t believe that, because the Shiite political forces are united,” he said, underscoring that if Shiites backed a slate of largely Shiite candidates they would be assured of a strong voice in the next Iraqi government.

In the back streets of Kadhimiya, election fever was building.

“Now there is less work being done because people are sitting around talking about elections, in houses, in their shops,” said Rassan Manhal Feisel, 23, a Shiite who works in a jewelry workshop.

“People want to vote. My family is deciding, whatever the consequences, they will vote -- nothing will dissuade us.”