Central Govt Boosted By Provincial Polls.

PM Nuri al-Maleki's political bloc, The State of The Law (SoL), made sweeping gains at Iraq's Jan. 31 provincial elections, including sizeable victories in the cities of Baghdad in the centre and Basra in the oil-rich south. These gave the Shi'ite leader-turned secular statesman a big boost ahead of parliamentary elections to be held before end-2009 and could mark the beginning of a significant shift in Iraqi politics.

Maleki has turned against both federalism and sectarianism. He wants to boost the powers of the central government at the expense of the provinces. Like the Sunni Arabs and many Shi'ites, he is seeking to amend the constitution which, according to an APS source in Baghdad, would limit federalism to the north provided that the KRG follows Baghdad's line in petroleum policy and other issues. But the source doubts that Maleki will have his way so easily, facing strong KRG opposition.

New US President Barack Obama was the first to congratulate the Iraqis on the polls and to praise Maleki for having cemented the foundations of real democracy in this country. Obama urged the winners to work for their people. He said the elections for the provincial council seats were significant, peaceful and important steps towards Iraqis taking responsibility for their future. He said: "Millions of Iraqi citizens from every ethnic and religious group went peacefully to the polls across the country to choose new provincial councils... It is important that the councils get seated, select new governors and begin work on behalf of the Iraqi people who elected them".

Lt Gen David Petraeus, who heads the US Central Command (CentCom) which is in charge of many countries in the Greater Middle East (GME), and until last autumn was the top American military chief in Iraq, on Jan. 31 praised the Maleki government for its efforts in making the elections "an event of which all Iraqis should be proud and an effort the world should applaud". He said: "While not without incident, today's elections are a cause for celebration as we salute the millions of Iraqi citizens who took to the streets to exercise their fundamental right to self-determination".

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was the first foreign leader to visit Baghdad on Feb. 6. He met with Iraq's Kurdish President Jalal Talabani, PM Maleki and other leaders, congratulating them on the vote and praising the leaders for boosting Iraq's new democratic experience.

In an article published on Feb. 3, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said Iraq's electoral victory was "Iran's loss". A neo-conservative (neo-con) who used to be among the hawks of the Republican administration of George W. Bush, Bolton underlined the shift of Iraqis from sectarianism to Iraqi patriotism, noting that the local allies of Iran's Shi'ite theocracy had lost in the Jan. 31 elections.

Other US and Western commentators, as well as many of their Arab counterparts, were emphatic on what Iraqis called "the Obama tremor" and "the Obama effect". The local and foreign media quoted Iraqi voters as saying "if the American democracy can bring a black man with Muslim roots to the presidency, then we want this democracy here in Iraq". Similar comments were heard in Afghanistan (news5AfghanTestFeb2-09).

Maleki was particularly lucky to gain from this effect, with the Jan. 31 polls having followed Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration which was watched by hundreds of millions of TV viewers around the world, including the Arab region and Muslim countries like Iran.

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