Starting Points: Tikrit

Apr 17, 2010

Iraqi Sunnis Expect Allegiance Shift to Bear Fruit - NYTimes.com

By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and SA’AD AL-IZZI

TIKRIT, Iraq — As he sits in his palatial home’s reception hall, Sheik Munaf Ali al-Nidah denounces the governments of both Iraq and the United States and shakes his head over the vilification of the Baath Party. Above his mantel is a photograph of a smiling Saddam Hussein. A Saddam Hussein watch is wrapped around his wrist.

Mr. Nidah — well known in Tikrit, Mr. Hussein’s hometown — ran in last month’s parliamentary elections but lost to a candidate from the secular party of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. He admits that even most of his cousins did not vote for him.

Mr. Nidah’s poor performance among his own relatives illustrates how thoroughly Mr. Allawi has reordered Sunni allegiances. It might seem odd at first glance that voters in a hard-line Sunni area like Tikrit would support Mr. Allawi, who is not just a Shiite but also an enemy of Mr. Hussein.

But as a strong secularist and with the strength of his biography as a former ranking member of the Baath Party, he managed to convince Sunnis that he could end the sectarianism they said had gripped past Iraqi governments and protect the rights they believed had been impeded.

Sunnis, who live primarily in an arc north and west of Baghdad, are seen as crucial to whether Iraq can avoid the sectarian and violence that consumed it after the 2005 parliamentary elections. A spate of explosions and other attacks since the voting on March 7, including bombs detonated outside the Iranian Embassy, have killed more than 100 people and wounded hundreds more. Many blame the political void created by the elections.

In Tikrit, elements of Mr. Hussein’s Baath Party and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia remain active, and thousands of unemployed men serve as a recruiting base. There are worries that the ranks of the disaffected men could increase, and so, too, violence, if Sunnis feel disenfranchised.

“The Sunnis are concerned about their own participation in the next government, not Allawi’s, but they tied their fortunes to Allawi’s,” said Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director with the International Crisis Group, an independent, nonprofit organization. “They have seen these elections as a possible turning point, an important reason why they joined the surge in 2007,” he added. “They were promised a chance to re-enter the new political order through these elections. If they fail in this quest, all bets are off concerning their future behavior.”

Negotiations between political parties have yielded little progress because voters split almost evenly between Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya coalition and Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s State of Law alliance.

There are growing fears among Sunnis, however, that a coalition of Shiite and Kurdish parties could push them to the political sidelines again.

Ibrahim al-Sumydai, an Iraqi political analyst, said that if that happened, the result would be “a great disaster.”

“Insurgents have entered the political process to support Allawi,” Mr. Sumydai said. “If he is not included, the Sunni street will be angry. Things will go back to square one.”

Mr. Allawi’s rise has corresponded with the decline of the Iraq Islamic Party, which has its voting base in Tikrit and other Sunni areas.

In the 2005 parliamentary elections, the Islamic Party and its Sunni allies, which had once been a default choice for Sunnis, even those who were not religious, won 44 seats and were given the posts of vice president and speaker of Parliament.

The organization represented Sunni aspirations and controlled patronage in Sunni areas, and its members helped persuade tribal leaders to turn against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia in 2006 and 2007, which together with the American troop surge quelled the insurgency. Since then, the party has been rattled by infighting and defections, including that of Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who joined Mr. Allawi’s list.

Now, after winning only six seats in the March elections — even though the total number of seats in Parliament was increased to 325 from 275 — the party has little bargaining power and has been largely absent from talks among the coalitions vying to form a new government.

Some in the party appear ready to write its obituary. Even some leaders acknowledge that many Iraqis have long believed that the organization was corrupt and incompetent and fomented sectarianism, and that Mr. Allawi’s candidacy simply represented a better hope for Sunnis.

“The public has seen us for the past seven years defending them, but not changing anything,” said Rashid al-Izzawi, an Islamic Party leader who was not re-elected.

Still, the support for Mr. Allawi in Sunni areas, which constituted his base, appears tepid — the best choice among lesser options.

And though Mr. Allawi’s coalition won a majority of the votes in Sunni areas, voter participation was generally down from 2005. In Salahuddin Province, of which is Tikrit is the capital, turnout fell to 73 percent this year from 88 percent in 2005. Turnout was also down sharply in heavily Sunni Diyala Province and increased only slightly in Anbar and Nineveh Provinces, which are also predominately Sunni.

In Tikrit, Mr. Hussein’s coffin rests inside a building closed to the public to prevent it from becoming a gathering point for Baathists.

Some people go so far as to say that Mr. Allawi represents the best hope for restoring the sense of pride they lost when Mr. Hussein was deposed.

“I think Allawi has views that are close enough to Saddam Hussein, and a personality that is close to Saddam Hussein,” said Muhammad Majeed, 36, who is unemployed. “He is not sectarian. He’s a tough politician, and he is serious in his work.”

Many others said they turned to Mr. Allawi only after becoming disenchanted with the Sunni religious party.

“ “I know he is Shiite, but he is secular and he will work for us,” said Ziad Atta, 42, a trader. “And I think he will work in our interest.”

Others in Tikrit do not believe that Mr. Allawi is the answer for Sunnis. Machsoud Shahb Ahmed al-Mula, who leads the provincial council, declined even to mention Mr. Allawi by name.

“It’s better to keep our personal views to ourselves,” he said. “This is a dangerous time.”

Duraid Adnan contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Tikrit.