Iraq’s election between religious and tribal influence

The loy­alty of the Iraqi vot­ers accord­ing to Al-Sharq is the com­mu­nity [eth­nic, reli­gion] then the tribe. The news­pa­per uses an exam­ple say­ing that Maliki and his Dawa Party went to the tribes [and Sup­port Coun­cils] to prove his “secularism”:

Al-Hakim is rid­ing the Shi­ite reli­gious wave, telling vot­ers if they want to keep their Shi­ite iden­tity, then they must vote for the Supreme Council.

Al-Akhbar says, “the rise of the tribal power” is the rise of the inde­pen­dents, but Awan said this “rise” depends on who will take the majority:

If Maliki wins the major­ity, then we will see a big role for the “Sup­port Coun­cils” in the future and more ten­sion with the Kurds. If Al-Hakim wins the major­ity, then he will advance his “South­ern Fed­er­ates” project and will improve his rela­tion with the Kurds but Maliki will get the sym­pa­thy of the Sunnis.

Al-Qabas not very opti­mistic with the role of the tribes and takes Basra as exam­ple say­ing, it is a maze of elec­toral lists where tribal chiefs will dis­ap­pear within.

A study on the reli­gious and tribal influ­ence on the voter writ­ten by Al-Gazi says that it is a mix of both will decide the opin­ion of the Iraqi voter.

The alliance between Maliki and the Sadrists in con­firmed on Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, but yet, this is the “magic” alliance allows Maliki and Dawa Party to “win it all”.

Al-Hayat said there are eight polit­i­cal blocs which will dom­i­nate the elec­tion, expect­ing lit­tle change­sas in Iraq’s polit­i­cal map, but this will pre­vent the “fed­er­al­ism” project(s) as Mushriq Abbas said.