As Maliki Clings to Power, Iraq's Fissures Deepen
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BAGHDAD -- When Nuri Kamal al-Maliki began his bid for re-election as prime minister -- exactly a year ago on Saturday -- he pledged to unite a population splintered and suspicious after years of war. He has not, and while he is hardly alone in blame, the consequences could haunt Iraq for years to come.
The purging of ballot lists before the election, the contentious and inconclusive challenges to the results, and the protracted delay in forming a new government since then have all deepened the ethnic, sectarian and societal cracks in a newly democratic state as fragile as an ancient Babylonian vase.
Sunni leaders in particular are angry at the prospect that they may be disenfranchised once again.
"The past four years have been full of injustice and oppression," Atheel al-Nujaifi, a Sunni who is governor of Nineveh Province in northern Iraq, said Sunday in Mosul.
He accused Mr. Maliki of having abused his authority by arresting opponents, pressuring the courts, and hiring and firing security forces based on sectarian identity -- practices, Mr. Nujaifi said, that Mr. Maliki continued even now as a caretaker leader with no mandate or parliamentary oversight. "Mr. Maliki's continuation as prime minister will create a dictatorship," he warned.
Even plans to conduct a census this month ran afoul of these divisions. On Sunday, Mr. Maliki's caretaker government postponed the census -- the first in years -- until December after angry protests that an accurate count of the country's population would rub raw the divides, especially in regions like Kirkuk and Nineveh, with myriad peoples and territorial disputes.
The challenge now is for Mr. Maliki to overcome the divisions and suspicions -- among Sunnis, above all -- that have dogged Iraq since its creation in 1920 under British rule, cobbled together out of disparate Ottoman provinces. Even though Mr. Maliki is all but assured of leading the next government, it could take weeks or months more for him to persuade the Sunnis to join the government in some way.
First Published October 4, 2010 2:00 am
