Iraq's electoral system works against compromise in search for end to violence

The search for an end to Iraq's violence is being complicated by an electoral system that empowers religious and sectarian leaders who see little gain in offering concessions to rivals or cracking down on factions that put them in power.

That makes it tough for the U.S. to steer Iraqi leaders toward the kind of political compromise that American military commanders believe is the only way to guarantee long-term stability.

The levers of power are firmly controlled by Shiite Muslim religious parties and Kurdish ethnic movements. Many of them see no advantage to concessions that could defuse the predominantly Sunni Arab insurgency, which gave rise to Shiite militias and triggered the worsening sectarian bloodletting.

The two national elections of 2005 — widely hailed at the time as triumphs of democracy — solidified sectarian and ethnic divisions and helped set the stage for the political deadlock propelling Iraq toward all-out civil war.

"Iraq has been painted into a corner by the particular electoral and parliamentary system chosen for it by the U.S. and United Nations," said Juan Cole, a Middle East expert at the University of Michigan. "There was never all that much hope that parliamentary politics could fix things, but this way of doing things makes them worse."

Much criticism has focused on Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, for his failure to crack down on Shiite militias and reach a compromise with Sunni Arabs.

But that's not easy under the current power alignment.

Al-Maliki's Shiite alliance controls 130 of the 275 parliament seats. But the alliance is divided among several factions.

Al-Maliki's maneuver room is constrained by the power of two nominal allies within his alliance: Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, head of the biggest faction, and Muqtada al-Sadr, a radical anti-U.S. cleric.

Both al-Hakim and al-Sadr control armed militias and together hold more seats than al-Maliki's faction. Al-Maliki was chosen for the top job in large part because neither of the other two Shiite heavyweights wanted a prime minister from the rival faction.

Any move against militias without the support of al-Hakim and al-Sadr would threaten the prime minister's power base. And cracking down on the militias would require all the political cover al-Maliki could get. He would have to rely on the mostly Shiite army and national police, many of whose members support the very armed groups they would be ordered to suppress.

In an effort to get around the political impasse, Iraqi Shiite and Sunni religious leaders issued a declaration last week in Islam's holiest city, Mecca, forbidding sectarian violence. Similar agreements have not lasted, though, and without progress toward a political settlement, prospects for this one are uncertain.

The stage for the current impasse was set when the Iraqis opted for a proportional representation system promoted by U.N. experts and accepted by the United States in late 2004.

During the first parliament election in January 2005, religious and ethnic parties formed alliances that fielded lists of candidates nationwide. Voters across the country cast ballots for the same lists, and the number of seats awarded to each alliance depended on its percentage of the vote.

Faced with lists of candidates they barely knew, Iraqis voted for parties based on their sectarian or ethnic identification.

That enabled Shiites, about 60 percent of Iraq's 28 million people, to sweep to power in partnership with Kurds. Sunnis Arabs, many of whom boycotted the first election, felt marginalized.

"The problem with proportional representation ... is that it encourages populism and empowers ethnic and sectarian leaders. It encourages politicians to be more accountable to party leaders rather than their constituents," said Michael Rubin, a former political adviser in Iraq.

For last December's elections, the Iraqis adopted a mixture of proportional representation and representatives chosen by district. That approach resulted in Sunni Arabs gaining more parliament seats but did little to lessen the sectarian focus — the only major bloc that ran on an inclusive, nonsectarian platform won only 25 seats.

And while Sunni Arabs increased their number of seats, many believe the result still doesn't reflect their influence in society, where their minority traditionally provided the ruling and commercial elite before Saddam Hussein's ouster.

Sunni Arabs form only about 20 percent of the population, however, so their numbers in parliament will always fall below those of the Shiites. Many Shiites and Kurds also blame Sunni Arabs for the abuses inflicted on their communities by Saddam's regime, and hard-line Shiite parties consider compromise as giving the Sunnis more than they deserve.

This month, Shiites and Kurds rammed legislation through parliament allowing creation of self-ruled regions over objections from Sunni Arabs, who fear it will splinter the country and deprive them of a share of Iraq's oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Kurdish north and the primarily Shiite south.

Sunnis thought they had a deal to defer consideration of the bill until after a review of the new constitution.

Passing the legislation sent a message to the Sunnis "that they will lose every political battle in a country with a Shiite majority — forever," Cole said. "They aren't going to put up with that."