The Middle East will witness critical elections in 2009. There will be local elections in Iraq, a presidential election in Palestine in January, parliamentary elections in Israel in February, local elections in Turkey in March, presidential elections in Iran and parliamentary elections in Lebanon in June. The impact of Gaza attacks on these elections has become a matter of curiosity. The Gaza attacks have already had an impact on the local elections to be held on March 29 in Turkey. Turkish political parties are seeking to attract greater support by using the Gaza conflict. Turkish intellectuals and political parties that remained indifferent to the civilian casualties in South Ossetia and Georgia in August 2008 despite kinship ties with these communities are now trying to mobilize public reaction against the recent attacks on Gaza. This serves the expansion of the sphere of influence of radical groups that will use the Israeli aggression as a pretext to promote their agenda.
The impact of the Gaza attacks on the Iraqi local elections to be held on Jan. 31 is also a matter of curiosity. The local elections are especially important because the local administrators for the upcoming four-year term will be picked in these elections. The Iraqi constitution adopted in 2005 delegates vast authorities to local administrators. This makes the local elections even more significant. The US supported the local administration legislation, which provided broader authorities for provinces because stronger provinces will maintain a balance between Sunni Arabs and the Shiite government. It is further considered that such a balance will be particularly important for achieving stability in Iraq and putting pressure on al-Qaeda.
Under the local elections bill adopted on Sept. 24, 2008, in Iraqi parliament, local elections will be held in 14 out of 18 provinces on Jan. 31. The local elections will be held at another time for three Kurdish provinces (Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaimaniya) and the province of Tamim (Kirkuk). Provincial parliament deputies will be elected in 14 provinces in the local elections.
The only local election since the 2003 occupation was held on Jan. 30, 2005. Some groups, including Sunni Arabs, were unable to take part in the elections because of terror attacks. For this reason, the elections failed to secure fair representation. This time Sunni Arabs want to achieve fair representation; the security issues have almost been resolved in today’s Iraq. There are no terror incidents in the country with the exception of Baghdad and a few other cities. A national consensus has been achieved. In such an environment, all political parties -- and some groups, including Sunni Arabs -- will participate in the elections. Local elections organized by the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq and supervised by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq will also be watched by international observers. The US, EU countries and Japan have already declared they will send observers. Fifty observers are also expected from Turkey.
It is not obvious how the Israeli attacks against Gaza will affect the current balances in Iraq; though the situation is relatively stable in the country. If the outcome of the elections does not satisfy the internal balances, ethnic and sectarian clashes may erupt in the south and north of the country. For instance, ethnic and religious conflicts may break out in Mosul, Hanekin and Diyala between Kurds and Sunni Arabs and, in the south, between the Iraqi Higher Islamic Council and the Sadr group. Besides, the US Army will leave the control of the cities to the Iraqi army in 2009. This may put Obama in a difficult position considering that he said Afghanistan should be the focus of the war on terror, rather than Iraq, stressing that this will lead to deployment of more troops to this country. This may also affect the current situation of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who is already a lame duck in this office.
