Tentative conclusions on democracy & governance
-
Voter choice in the Iraqi provincial vote
Early voting is underway in Iraq’s provincial elections. Financial Times offers evidence that the set of candidates is much more diverse that which contested both national elections in 2005:
Yet today, it is as if they have been injected with a new lease of life as they stand plastered with colourful posters that highlight both the different faces of Iraqi society and the battle hotting up for tomorrow’s provincial elections. Alongside images of austere looking bearded men in clerical robes are headshots of women in brightly coloured veils and businessmen in western-style suits, each vying for a seat in Basra’s regional government.
And:
For war-weary Iraqis, fed up with corruption, mismanagement, killing and kidnappings, the polls offer a glimmer of hope that a new generation of politicians may emerge, with a focus on people’s needs rather than the corrupt and sectarian politics that have dominated in the post-Saddam era.
This happy development is due in part to the so-called “open list” system Iraqis are using to elect governorate councils. Greg is right to point out that institutional change does not change voters’ preferences. Electoral systems do affect actors’ strategies, however. This new candidate-centric system has enabled candidates to run on a wider set of platforms.
Unfortunately, information on the details and politics of this electoral system have been impossible to track down. Is it really open list proportional representation, or is it single non-transferable vote? Going by a photo of a ballot (slide number five) at Financial Times, it doesn’t look like either.1 Who held the bargaining advantage in choosing the system: the legislature, activists, or the occupying forces? As of this writing, there is no record of the law on the Council of Representatives’ English-language legislation page.
The question of who decided is the more interesting one. If it was the Council of Representatives, Iraq’s party system would appear in flux. Recall that Iraq used closed list PR in 2005 because that’s what clerics wanted. They knew it would give them control of access to office. Now someone is undoing that arrangement? If American pressure explains “open lists,” on the other hand, we have evidence of successful, post-conflict electoral engineering. If you can help answer either question above, please leave a comment!
Whether institutions are driving or only enabling the apparent sectarian de-alignment, the outcome is good for democratic consolidation in Iraq.
- I do not read Arabic. Someone who does may have a better idea about what’s going on in the photo. Are those names of people or parties? If they’re of people, this looks like SNTV.
3 responses to to “Voter choice in the Iraqi provincial vote”
-
While I do not doubt that clerical pressure for closed lists was present prior to the previous national elections, various sources (Larry Diamond’s book being one that I recall) have suggested a more pragmatic reason: it was too dangerous for individual candidates to campaign.
For the very first election, which used a single national district, there was another pragmatic reason: it obviated a fight over district magnitudes, based on (unknown) provincial population balances. (A single district would not require a closed list, but I’d have a hard time imagining OLPR or SNTV when M=275!)
-
Fruits and Votes » Prof. Shugart's Blog » Will Iraq’s provincial elections turn on national politics? Or candidate images? January 30th, 2009 at 17:25
[...] the candidate-based campaign theme further, a post by Jack at Democratic Piece has two interesting quotations from a recent Financial Times [...]
-
Thank you for pointing out on your own blog, MSS, that the ballot on FT.com is compatible with OLPR.
Consociationalism has become a “best practice.” I explored the reasons for CLPR in an earlier post. One sticks out: facilitating the formation of parties by sectarian and ethnic groups with geographically dispersed memberships. Seems like a bad idea to me, but others still find virtue in the approach. Look at the commentators in your own post bemoaning the distributive emphasis of campaigns.
The practitioners of consociationalism have forgotten about its most important enabling condition. If one wants to induce party formation along the very cleavage dimension causing problems, one needs the groups’ leaders to agree to compromise.
In the absence of that elite cartel, consociationalism doesn’t work. We should avoid using it.
Leave a reply
Recent Comments