Written by Arkan Radeef / Translated by Shermeen Yousif
We are not free in Mesopotamia, and our democracy is a nothing but a lie; all we can do is choose between a sectarian and a sectarian, or a murderer and a corrupt person. Nobody can deny that Iraq has devolved into a country of corrupt sectarian parties and criminal militias, a country where murder, kidnapping, torture, displacement, absenteeism, sabotage, and administrative and financial corruption are the norms. With the impending Iraqi parliamentary elections in October 2021, phenomena that have always accompanied and preceded any parliamentary elections in Iraq since 2003 resurface. These heinous events were the primary reason for sectarian or nationalist parties seeking to monopolize guardianship over the people and the country in the name of sectarian religious ideology, reactionary nationalism, or backward clans, which has always been the quickest way to reach the brains of simple and ignorant people.
One of these phenomena is the assassination of activists by the Iran-based Safavid militias, such as Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah, Saraya al-Khorasani, and others. The forces of political Islam, backed by foreign parties, are afraid of any competition that could bring them back to their true size in the electoral environment, so they are employing displacement tactics such as assassinations, threats, and intimidation to clear the arena of genuine competitors. In previous years, these militias were and continue to be primarily responsible for the murder, kidnapping, torture, and displacement of many Iraqi citizens, particularly activists. Some of them, like the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq militia, compiled a list of assassinations that included the names of 700 civilian activists from Iraq and abroad. I wanted to silence the Iraqi street, which is currently revolting against the corruption of Iraq’s political parties and militias. This cowardly tactic prompted a number of parliamentary candidates to announce their withdrawal from the elections as a result of constant threats and intimidation (via phone messages and emails) from influential political parties, particularly those with armed wings. With the elections approaching, this is to be expected. Assassinations, intimidation, and threats will increase in number in order to spread terror and intimidation among activists, candidates, and even voters in order to force them to drop out of the electoral race and influence Iraq’s political process.
One of the dirty tricks used by powerful political forces in Parliament was to distort the new election law. The election law was amended after the October revolution, and it remained on the parliament’s table for eleven months for discussion under the pretext that the new law did not serve the interests of the Iraqi people. The reason was that the new law did not serve the interests of the Iraqi people. The real reason for the delay is that many of the law’s provisions have been tampered with, altered, and distorted to serve the interests of current MPs and their parties, as well as the deals struck between the parties and their representatives. Changing the candidate’s age to exclude a number of young people expected to win, changing the educational attainment requirement from a diploma to accepting a middle school certificate because some current MPs, particularly those affiliated with Iran, do not have university degrees, and changing the boundaries of electoral districts to benefit sectarian parties and rotten nationalist parties were among these distortions. The electoral districts were divided based on sectarianism, ethnicity, as well as the electoral audience. In the regions where they do not have the upper hand, they have divided them into multiple electoral regions and included them in constituencies where they have electoral weight in order to weaken these regions, making it difficult for an independent candidate to win. Dividing these regions will also limit competition between a certain number of candidates, which will facilitate the process of targeting independent candidates.
Manifestations of a boycott of elections have reappeared. Election boycott calls appear at all times, but this time they were more widespread and included political parties. The boycott calls were made for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the Independent Electoral Commission is rife with corruption and that a large number of the commission’s employees are affiliated with corrupt sectarian parties, which in turn control the electoral centers scattered across Iraq. These young men are responsible for the loss of a large number of electoral cards. According to some commission officials, more than 1.5 million voter cards have been lost, while others claim that the number of lost cards is closer to three million out of a total of 25 million. Their other responsibilities include assisting in the hacking, sabotage, and theft of most electronic devices, servers, and fingerprints, as well as tampering with the storage units in these devices by changing and forging data to serve the interests of their corrupt parties.
Explosions and fires of unknown origin were a constant companion in the days leading up to the elections, and the number of acts of sabotage in the country increased, including the bombing, and burning of some departments or public properties, all of which fall under the category of political action. According to previous statistics, nine bombings occurred in Baghdad’s Aviation Square between 2011 and 2018, during elections or negotiations to form a government, resulting in 158 deaths and over 300 injuries, despite the absence of intelligence and security services in the area.
Nothing brings people closer to their leader like a common enemy. As a result, we are witnessing the rise of sectarianism and an attempt to re-establish it among the people. The divide-and-conquer strategy has been used in order to gain more votes and maintain their political power, and these corrupt politicians, their parties, and militias understand that the only way to reach some backward minds and the ignorant is through sectarian discourse. With the approaching parliamentary elections, we expect the sectarian rhetoric to become more intense. Finally, there is the phenomenon of the emergence of suspicious political money that supports the candidate, with the source of money usually being influential militias and influential parties willing to support and implement their sick agendas after winning the elections.
The upcoming parliamentary elections do not herald any change in Iraq’s future political reality, and that the upcoming electoral results will be settled in favor of partisanship, sectarianism, ethnicity, and nationalism. Iraq’s future will remain stuck in the hands of corrupt Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds, but history has taught us that people do not die and tyrants are always resurrected, they’ll be consigned to the worst of history. If we want to see change in Iraq, we must first eliminate the corrupt political class in order to build a homeland that is inclusive of all Iraqi people, regardless of sect, or ethnicity.