NEWS STORY: Bitter Pessimism of Sunni Muslims Threatens Election Turnout in Iraq

c. 2005 Religion News Service BAGHDAD, Iraq _ Khaled Dulaymi’s spacious house is filled with darkness and cold. He lost his job in the information ministry when the Americans arrived last year, and as a repairman of generators he has been having a tough time getting money to buy black market kerosene and electricity for […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

BAGHDAD, Iraq _ Khaled Dulaymi’s spacious house is filled with darkness and cold.

He lost his job in the information ministry when the Americans arrived last year, and as a repairman of generators he has been having a tough time getting money to buy black market kerosene and electricity for his own home.


His politeness masks a simmering rage. He is pessimistic about the future of his country, and like many members of Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority, he says he stay away from the Jan. 30 parliamentary elections.

“Many people thought when the Americans came they would change it into heaven,” said the 40-year-old as he served tea to a foreign guest.

“But now people say it would have been better if they had left us with Saddam Hussein. I see all the political parties and they’re just empty. All of them are from outside Iraq. None of them have honor. I will not vote.”

Though Iraq’s Shiites and Kurds generally look forward to Sunday’s elections as a way to assert their political muscle, the country’s Sunni Arabs harbor a bottomless well of bitterness about Iraq and their future place in it. As many as 200,000 have either joined the insurgency or actively support it, according to the country’s director of intelligence.

Iraq’s Sunni Arabs generally prospered under the reign of Saddam, and fear a loss of power and prestige under a government dominated by Shiites and Kurds. But Hathem Mukhlis, Sunni leader of the Iraqi National Movement, says it isn’t just loss of power that fuels their antipathy.

“All the uprisings and coups against Saddam came from Sunni areas,” said Mukhlis, a native of Saddam’s hometown of Tikrit. “They were all Iraqis under pressure from Saddam and they revolted. Now they’re under pressure from Americans and they’re revolting.”

The extent of Sunni disaffection is hard to quantify.

Most observers believe participation by more pious Sunni Arabs will be lower than among secular ones, simply because the former have fewer options. The Muslim Scholars Association, a group of Sunni Arab clerics with Islamic fundamentalist overtones, has called for an all-out boycott of the elections. The Iraqi Islamic Party, the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, has withdrawn, though its name will remain among the 111 tickets on the ballot.

“What we have here is the Sunni political leadership understanding that they’re not going to get a lot of votes, so they don’t have a lot of incentive to take part in the elections,” said Sharif Ali bin Hussein, leader of the Constitutional Monarchy Party, which claims to represent Sunni Arabs.


According to a survey by the International Republican Institute, a Washington think tank with ties to the Republican Party, about half of Iraq’s Sunni Arabs say they intend to vote in the polls _ far fewer than the 80 percent to 90 percent of Shiites and Kurds expected to vote. But because of security concerns, the survey was not conducted in the most volatile Sunni Arab provinces, so the number may be smaller.

Remarkably, over the course of seven weeks of interviews throughout Iraq, not one Sunni Arab, other than those in secular political parties such as those led by Mukhlis, bin Hussein and former exile Adnan Pachachi, said they would definitely participate in the vote.

Among ordinary Sunni Arabs, especially the pious less educated ones, the mood is utter despair.

“Let them have their elections and win,” said a Sunni Arab engineer of 38 who insisted on going by the name Abu Abdullah.

“It will be an illegitimate government. Legitimate elections cannot be held because the previous government has not yet stepped down. I voted for Saddam. When he says he has resigned, I’ll take part in elections.”

Even moderate Sunni Arabs say now is not the time for elections.

“I don’t think it’s a good step forward,” said Iyad Adib, a primary school English teacher in Baghdad. “We need more stability to make this step. If the world accepted this election, it will be a disaster.”


At least a few of the various groups making up the insurgency, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s al Qaida-linked warriors, adhere to the Wahabbi or Salafi branches of Sunni Islam that inspire Osama bin Laden. Many Iraqi Sunni Arabs feel they have been unfairly labeled as terrorists.

“Under the U.S. tank, I have no choices,” said Abu Hamra al-Mokhtar, an antiques dealer. “They’ve equated Sunnis with terrorists. Under Saddam, one out of 1,000 Iraqis was a Salafi. Now it’s 100 out of 1,000, all because of the Americans.”

(OPTIONAL TRIM FOLLOWS)

While candidates have been too terrified to even publicize their names, and election workers too fearful to appear in Sunni Arab parts of the country, resistance has grown in numbers and audacity. Reports of insurgent checkpoints _ a phenomenon common in Fallujah before the November assault by U.S. forces _ have been trickling in from other parts of the country, including Baghdad.

In Baqoubah, a Sunni triangle city in the province of Diala, Tawhid and Jihad, Zarqawi’s group, has been spreading death threats to residents considering voting.

“Tawhid and Jihad have a strong presence here and I have seen them on the street,” said Abdul-Qader Shihab Amed, a 27-year-old taxi driver. “I can see that the resistance is growing stronger day by day.”

JL/RB MO END RNS

(Borzou Daragahi wrote this article for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)

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