- Title: Iraqis to vote in ballot marked by growing social and political fractures
- Date: 28th September 2021
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) IRAQI RIGHTS ACTIVIST, MOHAMMED YASSER, SAYING: "After the elections, I believe that Iraq will face dangers, especially regarding to the current conflict among armed factions. I can name them with their name and at my own risk. Now, there is a conflict between the State of Law Coalition and the Sadrist Movement. Nobody denies this. Especially since the Sadrist Movement previously announced that they want the Prime Minister's office. As if the election will bring this result, meaning that they believe they have to get the Prime Minister's office. This is dangerous." VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC WITH ELECTION CAMPAIGN BANNERS IN STREET CANDIDATE CLOSE TO PROTEST MOVEMENT, DAWOOD AL-HAFATHI, SITTING AT SCENE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) CANDIDATE CLOSE TO PROTEST MOVEMENT, DAWOOD AL-HAFATHI, SAYING: "If we know that continuing to protest would bring the current system down, we would continue to protest. We are protesting peacefully, we don't mind. But when we protested they killed us, arrested us, and maliciously charged us. We want change. How do we achieve change? We need to be present at decision-making levels, we need to be in power, in the legislative body. So we had to participate (in the election)." DRIVING SHOT IN NASSIRIYA VARIOUS OF TRAFFIC (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) CANDIDATE CLOSE TO PROTEST MOVEMENT, DAWOOD AL-HAFATHI, SAYING: "The candidate who wants to run with any party is scared, and being scared means there is a problem. So we were not scared. We were the first to hang banners and launch an election campaign in a simple way because we lack financial resources. We are simple employees."
- Embargoed: 12th October 2021 09:02
- Keywords: Elections Fractures Iraq Vote
- Location: NASSIRIYA AND BASRA, IRAQ
- City: NASSIRIYA AND BASRA, IRAQ
- Country: Iraq
- Topics: Middle East,Government/Politics,Elections/Voting
- Reuters ID: LVA003EWMX0SN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Elections in Iraq next month are being held early in response to mass protests against the government in 2019, but there is scant evidence the vote will improve matters in a country where powerful armed groups still hold sway.
Iraqis crave drastic change after years of conflict and corruption following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003. A brutal war to fight off Islamic State that ended in 2017 was followed two years later by protests against the ruling elite in which hundreds died.
And as the United States seeks to disengage, Iran retains deep influence in one of the region's main oil-producing nations.
Iraq's tortured politics are graphically illustrated in a town square in the south, where weathered portraits displayed on large hoardings honour those killed fighting for causes they hoped would help their country.
The images of thousands of militiamen whose paramilitary factions battled Islamic State hang beside those of hundreds of young men killed two years later protesting against the same paramilitaries.
Defeating Islamic State united Iraqis, who voted victorious militia commanders into parliament at the last election in 2018.
Iraq's next vote on October 10, by contrast, is set to lay bare growing rifts that have since emerged, none more than among the Shi'ite majority that was catapulted to power by the U.S. invasion of 2003.
Shi'ite militia groups backed by Iran are facing off at the polls against other Shi'ite armed groups that oppose Iran's influence. The activists who took to the streets in protest in 2019 are split among themselves, some boycotting the election and others taking part.
Reuters interviews ahead of the election with a cross-section of Shi'ites in southern Iraq, as well as Sunnis in the north, paint a picture of a country whose politicians, armed groups, and communities are more fractured than ever.
Mohammed Yasser, a rights activist from the city of Nassiriya, where security forces gunned down scores of demonstrators in 2019, said political fractures run deep even within his family.
Yasser is refusing to vote, while some in his family vote for reformist parties and one of his son's supports the Sadrist Movement, he said, referring to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - a populist leader who promises reform but is deeply embedded in the state and has a militia of his own.
Some politicians say Iraq is moving forward. The election is being held six months early under a new law meant to help independent candidates, with 167 parties running, according to Iraq's election commission.
Violent sectarianism is less of a feature and security is better than it has been for years.
Ordinary Iraqis, foreign diplomats, and analysts say the reality is a contest dominated by heavily armed groups which control state bodies and resources and are willing to resort to force to retain power.
They say popular resentment over corruption and lack of public services could play into the hands of groups like the Islamic State or push more Iraqis to migrate to the West.
The vote's aftermath will set the tone for the coming years: whether armed groups turn their guns on each other or peacefully divide the spoils.
Nassiriya, a flashpoint of anti-government protests, is a microcosm of Iraq's fracturing political landscape.
Parties hold rallies in halls out of public view and have not erected campaign posters because protesters tear them down.
Activists running as candidates keep a low profile, scared of militia groups which officials say are behind a campaign of murder and intimidation - something the militias deny.
Candidate Dawood al-Hafathi said splits in the protest movement had earned him threats from fellow demonstrators who want to boycott the vote.
The main contest is between Iran-aligned parties with their militias and Sadr, who opposes all foreign interference.
Sadrist officials and Iran-aligned candidates in Nassiriya downplayed their differences, saying they were mostly staying out of each other's way ahead of the election.
But one Sadrist official in Baghdad, who requested anonymity, said he feared violence if his party swept the vote.
Fractures have also hit Iraq's northern Sunni provinces and in its autonomous Kurdistan region. Protests in Kurdistan were violently crushed last year, alienating many people.
Sunni families suspected of sympathising with the Islamic State still fear reprisals, such as Brahim al-Hishmawi, a Sunni living in Kurdistan who said he would be risking his life should he go back to his hometown to vote.
(Production: Mohammed Aty, Maher Nazeh, Charlotte Bruneau) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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