DUBAI: Iraq's Shias should reach out to minority Sunnis and ethnic groups to ease regional fears about their unprecedented dominance of an Arab government, Middle East commentators said on Monday.
Iraq's main Shia alliance won 48 percent in the landmark Jan. 30 parliamentary election shunned by Iraqi Sunnis who said it was tainted by the US occupation of their country.
With the exception of Jordan, most Arab governments have remained silent on the result. But Kuwaiti political analyst Mohammad al-Jassem voiced the fears of many when he said the results were in Iran's favour.
"I am worried about the results (of the elections) for fear they would strengthen Iranian penetration into Iraq, resulting in an upcoming Iraqi government that would follow policies hostile to stability in the Gulf region," he said.
Iraq's Arab neighbours, at a meeting in Amman ahead of the elections in January, sought to prod Sunnis to come out and vote to prevent pro-Iran Shias from making a clean sweep. But most Sunnis shunned the polls to choose a 275-member National Assembly whose main task is to oversee the writing of a new constitution and prepare for new elections later this year. Analysts said the onus was on Iraqi Shias to bring in Sunnis into the new government.
"I still see it (the elections) as potentially instrumental in resolving the Iraq crisis," said Mohamed al-Sayed Said, deputy director of the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "But the alarming thing is it can also work in the opposite way ... increasing the gulf between Sunnis and Shias, giving Sunnis no cause for comfort," he added. Dubai-based Iraqi expert Mustafa Alani said a Shia government on its own was scary enough. "But this will also be a coalition government and there are many acceptable, moderate faces and Arabs will look for those," he said.
SHIAS HOLD KEY: The Shia-led United Iraqi Alliance needs the support of other parties if it is to set the agenda in the National Assembly. Analysts expect Iraqi Kurds, who won 25 percent of the vote, to be kingmakers in talks over who will take the top posts in the next government.
Secular Muslim Turkey fears the rising influence of Iraqi Kurds would reignite separatism among its own Kurdish minority. on Monday, it criticised the result of the election, saying it had failed to produce a truly representative parliament.
An Iranian government spokesman defended the result, saying it was natural for majority Shias to come out on top. The European Commission also said it hoped to see a broad based government in Iraq.
Some analysts said they expected Shia minorities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain to be emboldened by the result. "This is an event barely seen in our region and its effect will not stop at the boundaries of Iraq," said Bahraini columnist Jawad Abdul-Wahab. "This will represent the start of a trend for more democracy in the Gulf region."
The election was vital to a US plan to make Iraq a democracy after the 2003 invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein. Some Iraqis had cast doubts about the poll's legitimacy because of the US occupation and analysts said the result was unlikely to quell a Sunni Muslim-led guerrilla war. But other commentators said the new government could silence its detractors by quickly evicting the US-led forces. -Reuters
