February 12, 2005

Will Sistani Agree to a "Mandela"?

Will the Iraqi election results ever be counted? It has now been over 12 days since the election, yet we've only heard fragmentary results from the national balloting, suggesting that a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering is going on. I presume that the U.S. is trying to get the Grand Ayatollah to concede to a "Mandela." In the first open election in South African, back in 1994, Nelson Mandela took the early returns showing his ANC winning a massive landslide to his opponents and said he'd rewrite the results to give his party a smaller majority than they had actually won and allowing the opposition white and Zulu parties to "win" provincial power bases, in return for their cooperation in writing the new constitution. If they didn't, the ANC would just write the constitution themselves. The opposition leapt at this generous offer.

The U.S. is probably hoping for equal statesmanship from Sistani in agreeing to an artificial divvying up of seats, including representation for moderate Sunnis. The voting results would then be fabricated to support the deal. But, I have no idea whether Sistani would go for it, nor what his life expectancy would be if he did.

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