Democracy In Iraq

Democracy for the government of Iraq has been a long sought after goal by politicians, activists, and revolutionaries. It is considered to be a new, "fledgeling process" or phenomenon in Iraq, commonly afflicted by corruption, civil and ethnic conflict, and violence. Iraq has a score of 3.51 of ten ( authoritarian) on the 2021 Democracy Index. Numerous wars and conflicts in Iraq have made it difficult for a stable democratic government to emerge. Since 1980, the country has only experienced 13 years in which they were not at war. Iraq's government has – not for the first time – been in a political crisis (and paralysis) between November 2021 and October 2022.

According to the Constitution of Iraq, the Iraq government is a federal parliamentary representative democratic republic. It is a multi-party system whereby the executive power is exercised by the Prime Minister of the Council of Ministers as the head of government, as well as the President of Iraq, and legislative power is vested in the Council of Representatives. As of 2020, the Prime Minister of Iraq was Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, who held most of the executive authority. The prime minister appoints the Council of Ministers, which acts as the cabinet.

History

Iraq historically (before 2003) had been under the rule of monarchs and dictators and had never been a democracy. Political power in Iraq has historically not been inclusive. Many parts of its diverse population have not had access to power. This has increased social tensions and the use of religious and ethnic categories as a way for each group to claim more power. The minority Sunnis had dominated the Iraqi state since the birth of the nation in the 1920s. They feared losing power to the majority Shi'ites. In turn, the Shi'ites believed the time had finally arrived for them to assume a greater role in Iraqi politics. The Kurds, an ethnic minority, also wanted a strong voice in the new government. For years, the Kurds had struggled for self-rule and independence from Iraq in what is known as the Iraqi–Kurdish conflict. In 1992, the Kurds formed their own government, the Kurdistan Regional Government.

From 1831 to 1917 Iraq was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The British Empire defeated the Ottomans in 1917 and began ruling the country as the British Mandate of Iraq. Concerned at the unrest in the mandated country, the British decided to step back from direct administration and create a monarchy to head Iraq while they maintained the mandate. In March 1921, at the Cairo Conference, the British decided that a good candidate for ruling mandatory Iraq would be Faisal I because of his apparent conciliatory attitude towards the Great Powers and based on advice from T. E. Lawrence (more commonly known as Lawrence of Arabia). Thus, Britain had imposed a Hāshimite monarchy on Iraq and defined the territorial limits of Iraq without taking into account the politics of the different ethnic and religious groups in the country, in particular those of the Kurds and the Assyrians to the north. As a consequence, during the British occupation, the Shi'ites and Kurds fought for independence.

In 1932, the British granted independence to the Kingdom of Iraq. Faisal I ruled until his death in 1933, to be succeeded by his son, Ghazi I (1933–39), and Ghazi's son, Faisal II (1939–58).

In 1958, a coup d'état known as the 14 July Revolution was led by the Brigadier General Abd al-Karim Qasim. This revolt was strongly anti-imperial and anti-monarchical in nature and had strong socialist elements. Numerous people were killed in the coup, including King Faysal II, Prince Abd al-Ilah, and Nuri al-Sa'id. Qasim controlled Iraq through military rule and in 1958 he began a process of forcibly reducing the surplus amounts of land owned by a few citizens and having the state redistribute the land. He was overthrown by Colonel Abdul Salam Arif in a February 1963 coup. After the latter's death in 1966, he was succeeded by his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, who was overthrown by the Ba'ath Party in 1968. Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr became the first Ba'ath President of Iraq but then the movement gradually came under the control of Saddam Hussein, who acceded to the presidency and control of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC), then Iraq's supreme executive body, in July 1979. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was considered an authoritarian regime. The new regime modernized the countryside and rural areas of Iraq, mechanizing agriculture and establishing farm cooperatives. However, Hussein's ambition soon led him to be involved in various conflicts, with disastrous results to the infrastructure of Iraq. Hussein, a Sunni Arab, brutally repressed a Kurdish uprising during the Iran-Iraq war using chemical weapons and other indiscriminate means that killed 100,000-200,000 Kurds.

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for allies in the middle east which resulted in Iraq signing a treaty with the Soviet Union. According to historian Charles R. H. Tripp, the treaty upset "the US-sponsored security system established as part of the Cold War in the Middle East. It appeared that any enemy of the Baghdad regime was a potential ally of the United States."

American occupation (2003–2011)

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Iraq War was a significant turning point for the U.S.'s shift, from political rhetoric, to the real cause of democratisation in the region, as the invasions of those countries were partly for purposes of organising democratic governments.

In 2003, a US-led invasion of Iraq ousted Saddam Hussein's administration. However, it has been argued that 'bringing' liberal democracy and implementing it by outside force in Iraq (as the Bush administration seems to have envisioned in 2003) stood very little chance considering that any notion of liberalism hardly yet existed within the Iraqi culture; and that even establishing democracy of ''any'' fashion – liberal or illiberal – would not succeed in Iraq as long as stability and security were severely missing in the country.

In June 2004 the sovereignty over Iraq was handed over from the US to an Interim Government led by Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and the Iraqi voters went to the polls in January 2005 to elect 275 MPs to the Iraqi Transitional Government's National Assembly. It was a transitory body tasked with writing the nation's constitution. A further election followed in December 2005 to select members of the permanent legislature.

These elections resulted in a "government of national unity" in May, 2006, composed of the four largest parties in the 275-seat-Parliament: United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) (128 seats) which included all major Shi'a parties; the Kurdistan Alliance (DPAK) (53 seats) consisting of the main (ruling) parties of Iraqi Kurdistan; the Iraqi Accord Front (Tawafuq) (44 seats) consisting of Sunni Arab parties; and the Iraqi National List (25 seats), a secular party composed of both Sunnis and Shiites. However, insurgent attacks and other violence were common and protracted the country's instability.

Parliamentary elections in Iraq are generally free and fair, with a high voter turnout, but they are frequently marred by violence. The president of the republic, who has little real powers but can function as an informal mediator between different political groupings, is also chosen by the parliament. This is in contrast to Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, which consolidated all institutional authority in the hands of the president.

Despite spending billions to promote democracy in Iraq, the United States' attempt to form a democratic government there is largely considered a failure and has been called "democratic disillusionment." A 2011 study Costs of War from Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies concluded that democracy promotion has been flawed from the beginning in Iraq, noting as early as 2006 that "there were clear signs that post-Saddam Iraq was not going to be the linchpin for a new democratic Middle East." Corruption was rampant as the United States prepared to withdraw many of its combat troops.

2011 protests

In 2011, as an effort to prevent potential unrest, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced that he would not run for a third term and called for a constitutional term limit. Nevertheless, hundreds of protesters gathered in several major Iraqi urban areas on 12 February (notably Baghdad and Karbala) demanding a more effective approach to the issue of national security and investigation into federal corruption cases, as well as government action towards making public services fair and accessible. The protests resulted in at least 45 deaths, including at least 29 on 25 February 2011, the "Day of Rage".

War against the Islamic State (2013–2017)

The war by Iraq and its allies against the Islamic State has led to numerous human rights issues. Nearly 19,000 civilians were killed in Iraq in ISIL-linked violence between January 2014 and October 2015. ISIL executed up to 1,700 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets from Camp Speicher near Tikrit on 12 June 2014. The genocide of Yazidis by ISIL has led to the expulsion, flight and effective exile of the Yazidi people from their ancestral lands in northern Iraq.

According to ''Newsweek'', Amnesty International claimed that "Iraqi government forces and paramilitary militias have tortured, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of civilians who have fled the rule of the Islamic State militant group". The report, titled ''Punished for Daesh's crimes, alleges that thousands of Sunni men and boys have been forcibly disappeared by Iraqi government forces and militias.

2019 protests

In 2019, Iraq saw a series of protests consisting of demonstrations, marches, sit-ins and civil disobedience. It started on 1October 2019, a date which was set by civil activists on social media, spreading mainly over the central and southern provinces of Iraq, to protest corruption, unemployment, political sectarianism, inefficient public services and interventionism. The protest then escalated into calls to overthrow the Iraqi government and soon forced the incumbent government to resign in December 2019, by which time more than 400 demonstrators had been killed and many more injured. Nationwide demonstrations persisted in Iraq throughout the first quarter of 2020, but momentum began to wane as exhaustion set in, and finally, the COVID-19 pandemic-related lockdown measures brought the movement to an end. Nonetheless, the protestors' key demands (improved governance, public services, and job prospects) have mostly remained unmet. The notion that the advantages of the country's significant oil riches are not being felt by regular Iraqis is at the core of the discontent, with the blame laid on corruption, both locally in Iraqi politics and internationally as a consequence of foreign influence. Iraq was mired in political stalemate for much of 2020, as rival political groupings battled to agree on a leader. Since the appointment of Mustafa al-Kadhimi as Prime Minister, prominent members of Iraq's parliament have been a stumbling block to any reform progress. As a result, Iraq's lowest-scoring category is government functioning, with a score of zero. Iraq had the second-lowest score in the civil freedoms category, with a score of 1.18, down from 1.76 in 2019. The poor grade is due in part to lockdown limitations (which have had a global impact on civil rights), but it is also due to claims of increased usage of arbitrary detentions and allegations of torture being used to get confessions from suspected terrorists (including members of Islamic State and al-Qaida). Security personnel and armed militias, in particular, have been accused of employing oppressive techniques to quell protests, including the use of live bullets. Due to still-intermittent protest action, Iraq retains relatively high rankings in both the political involvement and political culture categories.

2021–2022 political crisis

Over a year after Iraq's October 2021 parliamentary elections, Iraq's government has still yet to be formed. It is the longest such impasse since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The conflict is between the Sadrist Movement, supporters of the Shia religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Iran-backed Coordination Framework Alliance led by Nouri al-Maliki. The Council of Representatives of Iraq have been unable to form a coalition government or elect a new President. The political unrest has several times caused protests and violence in Baghdad. The unrest is considered the most serious crisis in the country since the defeat of the Islamic State in the country in 2017, after which Iraq had had relative stability.

Measures of democracy

Iraq has struggled to develop and sustain political stability, safety, and the rule of law since Saddam Hussein was deposed in a US-led military campaign in 2003. Deeply ingrained corruption remains a major issue in the country and a major source of citizen resentment. The country's consociationalist governing structure, known as muhasasa, which many analysts believe has consolidated sectarianism, nepotism, and state takeover, is one of the country's major difficulties. Since 2003, successive governments have claimed to combat corruption through economic and political change. However, these pledges have yet to be followed by substantial action.

Iraq is ranked 118th out of 167 nations in the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index 2020, with no change in the standings since late 2020. Its score, however, has dropped to 3.62 out of ten from 3.74 in 2019. Iraq remains in the "authoritarian" category as a result of this decline (following a demotion from "hybrid regime" in 2019). Iraq is placed eighth out of twenty nations in the Middle East and North Africa area, despite its low worldwide position. This reflects Iraq's decades-long track record of having generally free and fair parliamentary and local elections, which are uncommon in the region. As a consequence, Iraq maintains a high ranking in both the election process (5.25) and political engagement (6.67) categories.

Their Press Freedom Index is 44.63, or "very serious", ranking 162nd overall. Journalists face a variety of threats in Iraq including violent protests.

On a scale of democratization established by Transparency International, Iraq is one of the worst-ranked countries in the world, surpassed in corruption by only Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Somalia. They describe the country's government as a "hybrid regime" (between a "flawed democracy" and an "authoritarian regime").

Corruption

Corruption is pervasive at all levels of government in Iraq and is considered a grave threat to the nation's democracy. In 2021, President Barham Salih said that $150 billion of oil money had been stolen and smuggled out of Iraq in corrupt deals since the 2003 U.S. invasion. The Iraqi economy is predominantly a cash economy, making it almost impossible to trace the amount or the path the money follows. The high rate of corruption in Iraq is reflective of the difficulty in its democratization process. As Iraq's political system deteriorated post-Saddam Hussein, levels of corruption rose, causing a lack of confidence in election outcomes and, in turn, a low level of participation, which itself causes problems for the country's democracy.

From 2013 to 2021, Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, which defines corruption as "abuse of entrusted power for private gain", showed a perception that the Iraqi public sector was seriously corrupt but improving.

See also

* Federal government of Iraq
* Elections in Iraq
* Politics of Iraq
* History of Iraq

References

{{Iraq topics

Democracy by location
Iraqi democracy movements
Politics of Iraq
Government of Iraq
History of Iraq
Elections in Iraq