For Iraqi Politicians, Laws Are Only for Others

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A bill regulating the activities of political parties in Iraq has been collecting dust since 2004 because the absence of legislation allows politicians to embezzle and do as they please, Iraqi MPs, analysts and ordinary citizens charge.

The inactive Law of Political Parties in Iraq has remained one of the most delayed and controversial bills because of a paragraph that says sources of financing must be regulated and transparent, some MPs and analysts say.

“What political parties and their backers fear most is revealing the sources of funding,” said Alia Nassif, an MP for the Free Iraqiya coalition.

She noted that candidates from the different political parties had already begun extensive and expensive campaigns for parliamentary elections in April.

“That’s a clear sign that there is money being embezzled from the government though corruption or received from external powers,” Nassif said.

“Today it has become clear that there are politicians using state funds in their election campaigns and there are mafias run by political parties,” she charged.

Despite the passage of more than a dozen years since Saddam Hussein’s downfall, representatives of some political blocs maintain that the law regulating political parties was written in haste, and needs to be amended before debate.

Political analyst Hamad al-Faisal agrees that, “Tying political parties to a body that follows up and monitors their financial resources is what scares the ruling parties, which possess large sums of money and are unwilling to reveal their sources."

“Most parties would not be approved under a modern law of parties. This is what has prompted these parties to proceed with a broken political process for more than a decade,” he said.

Faisal said that having a proper law “would simply mean disbanding these parties and confiscating their properties. These political parties do not want the bill passed and they have hindered this bill for all these years.”

“There will be no free and fair elections without such a law,” he observed.

Despite bitter power struggles and disputes among the political blocs, all appear to be in agreement against the bill in its present form.

“As a voter, I cannot elect political parties with a murky history, election manifesto and sources of funding,” complained Ahmed Aqeel, a 30-year-old Iraqi.

“The financial and administrative corruption, the problem of security and economic development are the most important concerns of all Iraqis,” he said. “How can these be achieved when the parties themselves are accused of receiving funds from abroad?”

Meanwhile, a member of the parliamentary legal committee, MP Adel Faddaalah, said: “Most of the political blocs do not want their activities be controlled or monitored by a certain body. They also do not want to be disciplined in case they violate the laws. The biggest catastrophe is the fact that the political parties neither want their financial income monitored, nor their sources disclosed, to determine whether they were illegal or not.”

“There are no legal problems concerning the Law of Political Parties,” he said. “But there are political differences that disrupt the enactment of the law.”

He also explained it was impossible for the bill to pass either in the current parliament, or the next one.

Sahar Abd al-Rahman, a 40-year-old school teacher, said that without a law there was no hope of a strong government in Iraq, where sectarian violence has been on the rise since US forces withdrew at the end of 2011.

“The government will not be capable of overcoming its problems and will hand down its problems to the future governments,” she said.