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Lion of Babylon -> RE: Who is Iraq's best candidate for PM? (11/3/2007 1:03:37 AM)
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2 new reports about Alawi. The first is an interview conducted by the highly respected political journalist Tim "don't take prisoners" Sebastian and the second is a statement of intent by the man himself. Between the available sectarian and racist politicians, he was and still is the best available option. His ideas might work and if they don't, it certainly can't be worse than what we have now. In my humble opinion its worth trying for sure.
Martial law needed to get Iraq back on track - Allawi
By Barbara Bibbo', Correspondent
Published: November 02, 2007, 23:40
Doha: A former Iraqi prime minister said a state of emergency and martial law in Iraq were necessary to establish law and order in the country. In a one-to-one interview with former BBC's Hardtalk presenter Tim Sebastian to be broadcast on BBC World today, Eyad Allawi also warned multinational forces against premature withdrawals that may cause a 'massacre', after Britain announced a pullout of its troops in December.
"You promised law and order but nobody can bring law and order in Iraq," said Sebastian as the interview began at Qatar Foundation last week.
"We couldn't finish our task... but we achieved some results," said Allawi who led the first post-Saddam government and didn't hide his craving again for the position.
"But at what price? What about the loss of lives?" asked Sebastian.
"It was an unfortunate turn of events... it was our mistake and of the multinational forces... but mostly of Saddam's regime which has brought all this upon Iraq," said Allawi.
Full interview: http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10164765.html
How Iraq’s Elections Set Back Democracy
By AYAD ALLAWI
Published: November 2, 2007
Baghdad
In the six weeks since Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker delivered their report to Congress on the situation in Iraq, there has been much criticism over the lack of progress made by the Baghdad government toward national reconciliation. Unfortunately, neither Washington nor the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki seems to understand that reconciliation between Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups will begin only when we change the flawed electoral system that was created after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The paralysis that has afflicted the government in Baghdad, the sectarian disputes across the country and the failure to move toward reconciliation were all predictable outcomes of the senseless rush to hold national elections and put the Constitution in place. At the time, leaders from all major parties produced a memorandum calling for a delay of the elections, which I presented to Ghazi al-Yawer, then the interim president of Iraq.
Yet due largely to political pressure from the international community, the elections went ahead in January 2005, under a misguided “closed party list” system. Rather than choosing a specific candidate, voters across the country chose from among rival lists of candidates backed and organized by political parties. This system was entirely unsuitable given the security situation, the lack of accurate census figures, heavy intimidation from ethnic and religious militias, gross interventions by Iran, dismantled state institutions, and the use of religious symbols by parties to influence voters. Accordingly, the vast majority of the electorate based their choices on sectarian and ethnic affiliations, not on genuine political platforms. Because many electoral lists weren’t made public until just before the voting, the competing candidates were simply unknown to ordinary Iraqis. This gave rise to our sectarian Parliament, controlled by party leaders rather than by the genuine representatives of the people. They have assembled a government unaccountable and unanswerable to its people.
How to fix this mess and bring Iraqis together as a true nation? We must begin with a fundamental re-examination of the electoral laws and the Constitution. This is not simply my opinion — it is shared by many of my colleagues in the Parliament’s Council of Representatives. I propose that a new electoral law be devised to move Iraq toward a completely district-based electoral system, like the American Congress, or a “mixed party list” system like that in Germany, in which some representatives are directly elected and other seats are allotted based on the parties’ overall showing. In either case, the candidates must be announced well in advance of the election, and they must be chosen to represent the people in their locality.
Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/02/opinion/02allawi.html
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