Opinion poll: 70% of Iraqis believe that the upcoming elections will not change the system of govern

[size=52]Opinion poll: 70% of Iraqis believe that the upcoming elections will not change the system of government[/size]

[size=45]Translated by Hamid Ahmed[/size]
[size=45]After nearly 20 years since the US invasion of Iraq, a new generation of Iraqi youth has emerged seeking a new vision and a different destiny for their country than it is now, by calling for internal political and economic reform and rejecting any external intellectual and political interference in Iraqi affairs.[/size]
[size=45]The parliamentary elections scheduled for October will be a test of whether there will be any change. Many of those polled, including clerics, ruled out that there would be a quick fix to the situation if the process did not take a long time to achieve any reform.[/size]
[size=45]Ali al-Qazwini, a cleric from Karbala, said, "I don't think this election will bring anything about change, but ballot boxes can be seen as a tool for slow change."[/size]
[size=45]Some of the protest leaders, on the other hand, expect that there will be massive protests in the streets after the elections, which are likely to fail to meet the demands of society, and that the next government will be short-lived.[/size]
[size=45]Since the wave of mass protests began in Iraq in October 2019, large numbers of activists and protest leaders have been targeted by armed factions trying to silence them. According to the United Nations, hundreds of protesters have been killed and hundreds of others have been kidnapped and absent.[/size]
[size=45]Iraqi civil society was for a long time paying the price for events resulting from instability and ambiguity, but it is now beginning to play its role as a vital and important factor in the political field. Young Iraqis now, who are in their twenties, have witnessed sectarian strife, and many of them have experienced displacement due to this violence. These young people put sectarian differences behind their backs and began to work towards achieving a national identity by chanting a unified slogan, “We want a homeland,” despite the fact that the majority of the demonstrators were from areas with a Shiite majority. Jawad al-Khoei, a cleric from Najaf, said: “These youths played a role in the protests out of a feeling of injustice and injustice.” Young people are described as the most affected group in society due to the absence of job opportunities available to them and thus they are unable to contribute to production within the community. According to the Atlantic Council report for the month of February, 60% of Iraqis are young people under 25 years of age.[/size]
[size=45]Hussein Gharabi, a well-known protest leader in Nasiriyah from the October protest movement, said, “The Tishreen Movement has major strategic goals. The most important thing is to put an end to the quota system that destroyed the country, as well as to amend the constitution and go to a new social contract.[/size]
[size=45]According to the independent IIACSS Survey, 62% of Iraqis during the year 2005-2006 believed their country was on the right track. But by the end of 2019, only 19% agreed that the country was on the right track.[/size]
[size=45]According to opinion polls, there is continued national support for the protests and their goals. A public opinion poll conducted by the National Democratic Institute for the period between December 2019 and February 2020 in Baghdad, Basra, Diyala, Erbil and Nasiriyah found that 68% of Iraqis stated that they support the protests that swept the country and that only 29% of them opposed them.[/size]
[size=45]The National Democratic Institute poll indicated that the protest movement was without anyone leading it, but protest activists saw this as a strength rather than a weakness.[/size]
[size=45]One of the reasons for the widespread popular support for the protests is that they demanded the rights of all Iraqis. All slogans were patriotic, calling for the protection of the homeland.[/size]
[size=45]Laith al-Najm, leader of demonstrations from Najaf, said: “The protest movement cannot be categorized as being restricted to a specific class or sect, but rather as representing all sects of Iraq and because injustice affected all these sects.”[/size]
[size=45]Many of the leaders of the protests emphasized in interviews the secular nature of the protest movement. Ali Al-Muallem, a political activist from Basra, said, “Most of the leaders of the protests are secular figures, and this is reflected in their demands such as developing state institutions and ruling the rule of law, and these demands have a secular character.”[/size]
[size=45]It is not expected that the parliamentary elections to be held in October will lead to a radical change in the political system, or that it will meet the demands of the Iraqi street protesting for reform and put an end to corruption and external interference from neighboring countries. According to a poll conducted in 2021, 70% of Iraqis do not believe that the elections will change the nature of the current system of government.[/size]
[size=45]Many of the protest leaders said that if the elections appeared to be a kind of manipulation, as happened in the previous elections, then there would be a call for a larger uprising than it was in 2019.[/size]
[size=45]For: The Gulf Institute for Studies in Washington[/size]
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