Global Policy Forum

By Nadim Ladki

A U.N. verdict against rushed elections in Iraq before the U.S.-led occupation formally ends in June would calm Sunni Muslim fears that majority Shi'ites could sweep to power in a land the minority sect long dominated.

A member of a U.N. team sent to Iraq to try to resolve a dispute over elections said on Friday there was not enough time to organize proper polls before the June 30 transition. That may disappoint Shi'ites, whose religious leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has been demanding an early vote, but it will relieve Sunnis and give their battered community more time to find a political voice in postwar Iraq, analysts said.

While accepting the principle of elections, many leading Sunnis say it is too early to arrange them, citing violence raging in parts of Iraq and lack of administrative readiness. Beneath these concerns lie the fears of Sunnis that they could be swamped if Shi'ites, who form up to 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people, bring their numerical advantage to bear in direct elections for a new sovereign government.

Charles Tripp, a British historian of Iraq, said cleavages within the Shi'ite community meant Shi'ites were highly unlikely to vote as a bloc, implying that Sunni fears were overblown. "If there are elections, the fiction of a Shi'ite majority may vanish, because they are not a political majority," he said. Nevertheless, few doubt the psychological pressures on Sunnis amid the uncertainties of postwar Iraq.

"The Sunnis are afraid of being swept away by the Shi'ites," said Adnan al-Janabi, an Iraqi political analyst. "The Sunni individual is anxious, he doesn't know his fate, he has an unprompted fear of falling under the authority of the Shi'ites."

Ruling Tradition

Sunni Arabs, about 20 percent of the population, have ruled modern Iraq since the British Mandate era after World War One. Though many suffered under his brutal rule, the Sunnis have been associated with Saddam Hussein, himself a Sunni. They have certainly borne the brunt of the consequences of his fall.

Violence that has claimed many hundreds of lives since the war has been concentrated in Sunni Arab areas where anti-American feelings are strongest and guerrillas launch daily attacks against U.S.-led forces and Iraqis seen as their allies. Sunnis were hit hard by last year's dissolution of Saddam's Baath party, army and security agencies, and the expulsion of Baathists from the top echelons of the state bureaucracy. "Fear and guilt are the two dominant, if unspoken, feelings," Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at Britain's Warwick University, said of the sullen mood among the Sunnis.

"There is a deep sense that the Sunni community was more implicated (in Saddam's rule) than others. It may not be true, but it is felt elsewhere in Iraq," he said. Analysts say Saddam's downfall caught the Sunnis completely unprepared to step out of his political shadow. While Shi'ites and Kurds had political and religious figures and groups that were organizing abroad and in areas outside Saddam's control, Sunni Arabs had little to fall back on.

"In general, Iraqi politicians are divided into outsiders -- exiles -- and insiders. The outsiders tend to be more organized and more connected to the U.S. administration," said Iraqi political analyst Omar Wamidh Nadhmi. "Because the people who opposed Saddam in exile are the Shi'ites and Kurds, their political parties are better organized to get through elections now than the Sunnis who didn't have an active opposition movement in exile."

Political Vacuum

The Sunni political vacuum has allowed the anti-American insurgency to grow with wide tacit support in Sunni areas. "There is no natural traditional Sunni Arab leader. There are some tribal leaders, but these are inherently exclusive," said Gareth Stansfield, an Iraq expert at Exeter University's Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He said Sunnis were now represented in the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council mainly by little known returned exiles and Islamists, leaving a gap in the political market for a "heightened nationalist Sunni resurgence."

A longer period to prepare elections could give the Sunnis time to come up with representatives ready to claim a stake in the new Iraq and provide a non-violent political outlet. "The Sunnis haven't solidified politically, but they will have to find a political voice," Dodge said.

"It could be a new Arab-Iraqi nationalist party calling for the expulsion of foreigners, law and order in the whole of Iraq, a strong state with strong borders and a strong role in the region."

Additional reporting by Alistair Lyon in London and Ghaith Abdul Ahad in Baghdad

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