Voters say it is difficult to have faith in government when they don't see it working for them, writes Kimi Yoshinoin Baghdad
THE SUICIDE attacks and car bombs don’t strike daily in Iraq any more. People are venturing out at night. But that doesn’t mean voters are satisfied with their leaders.
Ask them to list their most important issues in local elections this Saturday, and security takes a back seat to basic services, the economy and culture, if interviews with Iraqis across the country are anything to go on.
Some are so soured over the government’s ability to get things done that they’ve already become apathetic during Iraq’s early days of democracy.
“I won’t participate in the upcoming elections,” says Nahar Fakhri Sadoon (58), of Basra city. “What happened in the past is the best proof. We challenged the enemies and the security situation, yet regrettably, those we voted for didn’t give us the simplest things, and that is services.”
Election officials say interest is high, noting that more than 14,400 candidates are competing for 440 seats. About 14.8 million of Iraq’s 28 million people have registered to vote in the 14 provinces holding elections, compared with the 15.5 million in all 18 provinces who registered in the 2005 elections.
“In the last elections, large numbers of Iraqis were not believing in the political process,” says Judge Qasim Hasan Abodi, head of Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission. “So this reflects the growing awareness and confidence in the political process, and that democracy- building is on its correct path.”
But Iraqis say it is difficult to have faith in government when they don’t see it working for them. In the almost six years since the US invaded, the government has been unable to solve major infrastructural problems, leaving the majority of Iraqis without reliable running water or continuous electricity.
The quarterly Pentagon progress report to Congress released this month indicates that the lack of key services has replaced security as the top concern for most Iraqis. Unemployment remains high, with people seeing little or no improvement in their economic situation, it says.
In a nationwide survey, only 16 per cent of Iraqis reported being “somewhat” or “very” satisfied with the amount of electricity they were receiving.
At Abu Abdullah’s home in the Yarmouk neighbourhood of Baghdad, the electricity had been out for a week and the water pressure was so weak he couldn’t flush the toilet or take a shower.
“It’s very, very, very weak water pressure, if not absent,” says Abu Abdullah (52), who is a mechanical engineer. “These are things in touch with your everyday life . . . At least what I want to see in the future is that we return to the same level of infrastructure as before 2003.”
Samira Jaaz (43), a secondary school teacher in Basra, agrees. Now that there is security and more stability, she says, “the government has no more excuses for not providing services”.
Some candidates have tapped into the discontent. Eye-catching posters for politicians running on the secular platform of parliament member Mithal Alusi show a boy drinking water through a white pipe from a dirty water source. And posters for another platform promise “to make sterilised water reach every house”.
Although the elections are for provincial councils, voters are expected to make choices based on the party or slate’s national performance. That worries Sheik Fatih Kashif Ghitaa, director of the al-Thaqalayn Centre for Strategic Studies in Baghdad.
Ghitaa says the parties are confusing voters by attaching photos of some of Iraq’s most well-known politicians, such as prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, instead of making a greater effort to educate them about local candidates. “This is an underestimation of the Iraqi citizen and voter,” Ghitaa says. “In 2005 and 2006, the brains of voters were washed with a religious mentality . . . Now, it’s washed with the performance of the government – either negative or positive.”
He says his polling has also shown that most voters, particularly those in central and southern Iraq, are seeking personal benefits. “They’re asking, ‘What can this candidate do for me?’ ” Ghitaa says. “We don’t see patriotic or principled behaviour – just beneficial behaviour, which is an unfortunate thing that’s now happening in Iraq.”
Khazraji Ali (35), who runs a clinic in the southern city of Diwaniya and teaches at a medical school, says that’s the same question he hears from patients and friends – even the well-educated ones.
“We just came out of dictatorship,” says Ali, who spent much of his childhood living in Britain. “We need political and ideological maturity . . . When I think of who I’m going to vote for, I think, ‘What’s their programme? What is their background? What are they talking about?’ ” But Ali says most of the people he knows plan to vote for a friend or relative who can benefit them in office.
“We haven’t had a true political experience in Iraq,” he says. “It’s always been one government, one dictatorship. Everything the government says goes. No one has been asked what they think of anything.” Real democracy, he believes, will take a decade to develop. “At least,” he says.