Editorial: Iraq election small taste of democracy

Iraq's first free election in a half-century prompted an understandable euphoria. Shiites and Kurds, freed from generations of persecution, voted enthusiastically in defiance of the threat of insurgent bombs. Even the country's bureaucrats were swept up in the fervour. Early on, the Election Commission announced that 72 per cent of Iraqis had voted. When cooler heads prevailed, that figure was scaled back to a guesstimate of 60 per cent. Similar leavenings of sobriety will be required over the next few months if this brush with democracy is to prove other than a false dawn.

The election proceeded much as expected, except for the rather better-than-anticipated voter turnout. Shiites and Kurds were clearly determined to seize the opportunities presented by the ballot box. The Shiites, who make up 60 per cent of the population, confirmed their demographic advantage, and the size of the Kurdish vote should enable them to cement autonomous rule in the north. Also foreseen, unfortunately, was the poll's major shortcoming - the failure of Iraq's Sunni population to vote in significant numbers.

On the ground, therefore, the election has changed little. The Sunnis, who have dominated Iraq for the past century, will continue to wage a battle for control through insurgency. This tactic will change only if some way is found to bring them into the new transitional Government, whose main task is to draft a new constitution by August 15. The chances of that occurring do not appear good. The fighting in Iraq has become increasingly sectarian. Insurgents have been targeting not American forces but the Shiite-manned Army and police. The Shiites have so far declined to react, doubtless recognising that this could have jeopardised the holding of the election, their ticket to control of the National Assembly. They are now being requested by the United States to bring Sunnis into parliamentary and Government bodies.

That is asking much of the Shiites in terms of humility and maturity, not to mention their inexperience with democratic processes. It would be unsurprising if the Shiites were loath to concede anything meaningful. The Sunnis, for their part, appear unwilling to take part in such an arrangement. They make up just 20 per cent of the population and are destined to be a minor player in a democratic state. Most regard insurgency as their political and economic bargaining chip, if not the route to reclaiming power.

The Shiites and the Sunnis share one main objective - the wish to see the US leave Iraq. Yet even that is unlikely to be the catalyst for a coming together. There might be some hope if the transitional Government could show that it, not the US, was in charge. But it is difficult to suggest even an appearance of control when the US Army is scheduled to keep 120,000 troops in Iraq until the end of next year. At that time, it is hoped, the National Guard, Army and police will be ready to safeguard security.

In any event, the Sunni resistance is driving a wedge through Iraq, rather than uniting the country against the Americans. The insurgency has not translated into a movement appealing to Iraqi nationalists as a whole. The Shiites are going their own way, and the sectarian attacks have widened the breach between Sunni and Shiite.

An array of bright-eyed statements has come from the White House in the aftermath of the election. Most deny reality. At least there has been an acknowledgment of this from the US Army. "We should not delude ourselves," said Brigadier General Doug Lute, the director of operations for the US Central Command. "Iraq is still going to be a violent place, and it's still going to have an emerging Government, and it's still going to have relatively immature security forces."

That sober analysis puts the task confronting the transitional Government in its correct perspective. Most Iraqis have enjoyed a taste, however contorted, of democracy. But the real, and far more difficult, job is just beginning.