Democracy Grows in Anbar

Here in barren Anbar Province, the tribes that were once the main source of support for killing American soldiers are running in provincial elections that, in the best case, could fulfill American promises to create stability in Iraq by the ballot box.

But two weeks from the voting, in Anbar it appears that the ancient tribal way of doing business is on a collision course with the new ideal of democracy. Anbar is where the U.S. military enlisted tribal leaders and former insurgents to create the Sunni Awakening, fostering a calm that rippled around Iraq.

Now the tribes are jockeying to gain or maintain power, and people here complain bitterly that the machinery of democracy is gilding corruption, internal rivalries and an intense feudal instinct that regards elected office - unthinkable under Saddam Hussein - as a chance for a bigger cut of provincial resources and security forces.

"It's a mess," said Sheik Amer Abdul-Jabbar, an elderly and ailing tribal leader from Anbar Province, respected among some as the wise "prince" of Anbar but derided by others as an opportunist who is eager to lend his tribal credentials to the highest bidder.

Around Iraq, the provincial elections scheduled Jan. 31 are viewed as a landmark moment to reshape, and make fairer, local politics. Many Sunni Muslims boycotted the last provincial elections, four years ago, and as a result are underrepresented in local councils in many parts of the country. These elections will fix that, the United States hopes, while its own military and political power in Iraq wanes.

In Anbar, the campaign looks refreshingly like elections everywhere. Party posters are up all around the province, at times on concrete blast walls, reminders of more violent days. More than 500 candidates are divided into 37 political groups - a robust choice given the boycott of four years ago. Sheiks making earnest campaign promises proudly display photographs of themselves posing with other politicians. One tribal leader managed pictures with both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

But Anbar, poor and lawless even under Saddam, is different from many other parts of Iraq. It is overwhelmingly Sunni, so the fights are not ethnic or sectarian but between competing tribes. When the Americans began paying former insurgents and tribal leaders to help enforce security, they favored some tribes over others, in many cases displacing the old for upstarts.

That fostered a general peace layered over an angry tribal instability that many fear could turn deadly, in the elections or after.

"We are not suited for democracy," said Major General Tariq al- Youssef, chief of the provincial police force, who worries that the tribes are seeking political power not to administer the security forces but to co-opt them as quasi-tribal militias.

Broadly, the Awakening is seeking to transform its credentials as a peacemaker into political power, a force for the minority Sunnis against the dominance of the Shiite prime minister, Nuri Kamal al- Maliki, and the Shiite parties. Here in Anbar, the new political forces are meant to challenge the Iraqi Islamic Party, which became the main Sunni party after the elections in 2005 but is often accused of corrupt and autocratic rule.

On one level, the elections are functioning as their American designers had hoped: The lure of elective office is creating new political entities seeking legitimacy through attracting the largest number of voters. "This is democracy," reveled Mamoon Sami Rashid, the governor, who is running for re-election despite corruption allegations against him. "Each sheik wants to have his say. Previously only the paramount sheik ruled."

On a recent afternoon here in Ramadi, Bangladeshi servants whisked around trays of mutton and rice for well-wishers at the opulent compound of Sheik Ahmed Abu Risha, who is not running for office but is fielding a slate of candidates. His party is casting for votes on promises to rebuild Anbar's war-battered economy and to create jobs.

But dig deeper, and the tensions become clear.

So some in Anbar are turning quietly to other alternatives: General Saadoun al-Jumaili, a former commander in the Iraqi Air Force who now leads an elite police unit in Garma, said a reconstructed version of Saddam's ruling Baath Party was becoming more popular. While it is officially banned, Jumaili said with some approval that it was operating in secret in Anbar and that it was making strides in regrouping.
Military.com