The steps toward announcing electoral alliances have accelerated awaiting election day, and between these two situations, the election clock stops before a two-dimensional equation: How can the silent majority be attracted to the ballot boxes? And is election governance possible in Iraq? What is the result of combining these two questions?
The facts declared by the Election Commission indicate that the announced alliances still revolve around quota and sectarian components without moving toward spaces of active citizenship. Despite this reluctant model, the Election Commission is still unable to settle innovative and creative mechanisms and methods to enforce the parties and elections law. Yes, we have heard of the cancellation of candidacies here and there, but we have not heard of models implementing election governance in its best pillars. The first is the disclosure of the financial integrity of candidates and the leaders of the Sadrist currents and Iraqi parties behind their candidacy, including senior religious leaders, before and after 2003. The Integrity Commission Law allows it to issue any instructions to enforce the law in combating corruption. The best step the Election Commission and the Integrity Commission can take is to agree to automate the financial disclosure steps with the required speed.
The second pillar of governance steps is a very clear and explicit separation between armed party factions, which have respectable positions in the security sector, and parties running for the legislative authority according to the current constitution and the Iraqi Parties Law, which explicitly prohibits parties with armed factions from political work.
The third governance step is the disclosure of election campaign financing and accountability for violations by revealing the source of funds.
The fourth pillar of governance steps is that electoral programs must be under the umbrella of enforcing the constitution and laws, with no threat to social peace through sectarian slogans or ethnic fanaticism, and that these programs be a model for government policies in the event any alliance wins the electoral race.
The question repeats: Can the Electoral Judges Commission commit to the laws and innovate application methods?
The realistic answer is no, for various reasons beginning with the commission being under the quota system, and the governance barnyard calculations do not align with the fields and corridors of Iraqi political reality, which includes challenges and conflicting interests represented by regional and international forces.
Also, the question repeats: How can the silent majority be attracted to the ballot box?
The preference lies in only two paths. The first is the Election Commission’s attempt to activate governance scope on parties’ and candidates’ commitment to disclose financial integrity, which is available and does not require legal amendment, but requires an agreement with the Integrity Commission to include candidates and their parties in financial disclosure.
The other path is for the Electoral Judges Commission to be strict about the content of electoral programs and campaign methods. Such strictness and disclosure of financial integrity can attract the silent majority and bring them back to the ballot box.
There is also a proposal that does not require legal amendment and the Election Commission can work on it: to require electoral alliances to name their candidate for prime minister, making this a condition of electoral campaigning. Such competition can also attract the silent majority to vote.
The last question: Will political parties that have long admitted their failure to lead Iraq to the shore of security and safety face the reality of election recovery and bring a new model of political programs? Or will electoral campaigning continue revolving around the same triangle of economic wishes: providing areas with electric transformers, paving streets, and gathering files for appointments under contracts or obtaining social welfare IDs? This faded triangle ends with the buying of electoral cards and the emergence of a new parliament without constitutional legitimacy, and these days we exchange them among the people.
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