Iraqis can be proud of their electoral experience, regardless of the circumstances in which they were held and the objections they might face. Evidently the recent legislative elections will not necessarily lead to laying the foundations of a true democracy, restoring the country's complete sovereignty and launching a massive growth campaign that would restore the Iraqi middle class's former role and the country's prosperity as would be consistent with its tremendous natural resources. Yet the process in itself represents a departure from those political practices and habits that had become forcefully entrenched ever since the monarchy was toppled in Iraq in 1958 and had led to the previous oppressive regime. The results of the vote and the nature of objections to them are not very important, even if they express the feeling of voters that it is necessary to break the vicious circle of sectarianism and of the danger it has come to represent on the political and social levels. Furthermore, the prime winner of these elections, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, may not be able to impose himself as an obvious candidate to the post, as the constitution and the democratic game require. Yet the mere fact that he has capably competed against the Prime Minister of a government that has supervised the elections, namely Nouri Al-Maliki, the leader of a large coalition, and has obtained more votes than the latter means that one of the vicious circles of authoritarianism and dictatorial trends has been broken. In other words, these elections have placed Iraq on the path of peaceful alternation of power, in a manner that can no longer easily be retracted. The vote itself has also shown that those who boycotted the political process, regardless of their motives, had no notable effect on completing the elections. And even if terrorists were able to bring down some victims with their bombings, they were not able to obstruct the voting process or to affect participation in it. It is true that terrorist violence did strike during this process, which had been expected and would have been difficult to avoid entirely. Nevertheless, coalitions and political parties engaged in the process and participating in the elections maintained a notable degree of healthy competition, despite the intensity of the battle. Indeed, the campaign and the elections did not witness any notable security incidents between those competing, as the latter all maintained a certain degree of respect of the other and of the voters' right to choose, even if they all complained of bribes, vote-buying and the exploitation of tribal and sectarian relations. And even if some coalitions and candidates have challenged the results, everyone has asserted their commitment to the legal path in such challenges; in other words, their commitment to recognizing that the arbiter is not political whim, the desire to monopolize power or armed force, but rather legal rules and regulations, and that disagreements, however intense, could be resolved peacefully. These elections have led to a new political balance of power in Iraq. Indeed, it was no longer possible, regardless of the results of negotiations between coalitions represented in the new parliament, to leap over a segment of the Iraqi people whose demands and roles had been marginalized as a result of the previous elections. This matter does not regard the Sunnis alone, but rather all those who voted for Allawi's list, who include those who oppose sectarian alignment, running the government on the background of the rule of the Shiite coalition, excessive politicization of religion and rampant administrative corruption. They also include those who cling to national sovereignty and to restoring Iraq's weight within its Arab environment. Thus, the next Iraqi government can free itself, much more than the current one could, from regional, and especially Iranian, pressures and can restore the balance to Iraqi foreign policy in terms of its Arab politics. Furthermore, as it will be the one supervising the phase of the US withdrawal, it can lay the foundations for an institutional relationship with the United States. In conclusion, the recent Iraqi elections have fulfilled their function, in terms of abiding to voters in order to determine the nature and politics of the government. In other words, they have provided an opportunity, one that is nearly a rarity in the Arab region, for the possibility of change and of peaceful alternation of power. And this in itself is the core of the Iraqi people's victory.
