Iraq: Can Local Governance Save Central Government?
Baghdad/Amman/Brussels |
27 Oct 2004
Amid spiralling violence, the best way to hold Iraq together - perhaps the only way - is to concentrate now on local governance.
Iraq: Can Local Governance Save Central Government?,* the latest report from the International Crisis Group, examines the series of mistakes the coalition authorities made in choosing local councils and devolving power to them, and how those mistakes were compounded by the Iraqi authorities' distrust of decentralisation. With the current unrest, much territory is now beyond the Interim Government's control, and national elections are likely to be postponed or held in parts of the country only. In this context, strengthening government at various local levels should be the priority.
"The paradox of governing Iraq today is that to protect the centre, you need to re-enforce the periphery", says Robert Malley, Director of ICG's Middle East and North Africa Program.
From the outset, occupation forces and their Iraqi allies should have focused on establishing effective, representative local institutions. They did not. They had no plan and altered their strategy in response to broader political concerns. Local U.S. military commanders had good intentions but lacked expertise; officials with the U.S. Agency for International Development had expertise but lacked means and saw their approach sidelined by short-term political considerations.
Despite repeated assurances from Iraqi and U.S. officials that national elections will take place on schedule in January 2005, continuing security and logistical hurdles make it increasingly likely they will be either postponed or held strictly in secure areas. A delay could lead Shiites to rebel, sparking a conflict that could veer toward civil war. Because elections are to be held under a single district nation-wide proportional representation system, holding them in parts of the country only is no better solution: it raises the prospect that the Sunni Arab minority will not be represented, thereby further alienating the very segment of the population at the heart of today's insurrection.
If national elections in January are not realistic, the Interim Government should organise elections to provincial councils first, proceeding wherever possible on a rolling basis in order to allow laggard governorates to catch up when ready. They would thus be held first in the predominantly Shiite governorates, whose populations would come away feeling truly represented in governing institutions for the first time, and in the three Kurdish governorates. Newly elected local governments must also be effectively empowered.
"Right now, neither central nor local authorities possess the legitimacy needed to hold Iraq together - that has to change", says Joost Hiltermann, ICG's Project Director for the Middle East. "If it cannot start at the national level, it should start at the local level".