Political editor

Political Iraqi reality has witnessed, after 2003 and for the first time in the contemporary history of Iraq, its being marked by political sectarianism and allocation feature that has drained the forces of state and community, inserted the state entity in a dark tunnel, hit the fabric of its national unity in the core, impacted the community and its active forces, and created a state of internal dissension that cast its shadows on the political mobility in whole and in part. Notwithstanding some statements here and there released by the participants in the political process to the effect that it is necessary to overcome the obstacle of political sectarianism and its products like allocation and others, but the reality denotes the lack of virtual strong mobility to counter  the stream of "holding on to allocation system" which works assiduously in order to maintain that condition in the service of this stream members' interests who know for sure that sectarian, ethnic and religious division has greatly contributed to their leadership ascension and their relish in the privileges of power.

Anyhow, every objective observer cannot deny that the forces of people had entrenched around these groups at a time, for objective and subjective reasons and under the pressure of sectarian and internal specter of war that stormed Iraq after the elections of 2005, but the people did recognize and touch with own hands the gravity of sectarian retrenchment and began to wake up from the coma created by that stream; however, the people defended their future in the past local elections and the rate counted not in favor of religious factions came to over 40% of votes had it not been for the structure of electoral system and method of seat calculation in the provincial councils thus these together surrounded that popular will in effort to maintain the knights of sectarianism surviving at the apex of decision making pyramid. It is clear now that Iraq is at a crossroad: so either to build a state of citizenship and move steadily towards a future that would realize all aspirations of the people in all stripes and components apart from the policy of exclusion, marginalization and fear from the other; or to proceed in the path of sectarianism and this means more terrorism, chaos, corruption and other products of the allocation system, and presumably, many observers perceive thoroughly that sectarian and ethnic alliances are no longer the right and favorable option for the Iraqi voter, and consequently that the future of those is precarious, as the observers believe, though we see the opposite, for the current formation of alliances and coalitions indicates that the largest three coalitions remained holding their tight identity whether sectarian or nationalistic, and despite that the Iraqi coalition, the largest bloc of parliament, has endured fragmentation in local elections but it returned to gather together, though a large chunk thereof still lacking, under the leadership of the current Prime Minister and she preferred to run elections separate from the parent coalition, and same happened with the Kurdistan Alliance whose two large divisions have been its main core in addition to Al Tawafuq Front which was the biggest loser under the current political chart after the withdrawal of prominent  members there from as well as political movements that were associated therewith, but in spite of this loss the said front did not resort to make up for what was lost by being open to other movements outside the spectrum of the "Arab Sunni " and thus preferred to enter the elections preserving its Arab Sunni identity.

Interestingly, some rely on the dissensions that took place in the large blocs to reproduce a political chart transcending sectarian and ethnic which identified the trends in the political process over the past years, but those have forgotten that all those old and new blocs did not blocked the gates of alliances after the appearance of elections results, consequently the gate, some observes once thought that it was opened to have the knights of sectarianism driven out, will see soon their return and thru the same gate as well, so the choices in front of the Shiite citizen, for instance, will be restricted to two main alliances competing in the elections, but after the elections, nothing will prevent their association electively to re-form the largest bloc in the coming house of representatives, and the same applies to the Kurds, and the Arabs Sunni, and this matter is due to absence of a real national project strong enough and capable to compete those blocs and withdraw the rug from underneath them.   

The options of Iraqi voter under the chart of coming alliances and coalitions are limited and consequently we cannot delude the Iraqi voter that the opportunity is favorable to remove those blocs off the political chart or reduce its impact on the making of political decision or the leading of political mobility in the upcoming House of Representatives, however, it is noteworthy that the will of  Iraqi voter will impose some changes on the political arena, since, and in spite of what we have mentioned that those blocs will undoubtedly enter the parliament strong once again, yet that does not mean that they will be as strong as they were in the current parliament, as they will inevitably lose votes in favor of the national project which will be even stronger as well in the coming parliament which is charged with the commission of dictating the people's will on the next House of Representatives  and resorting to the street in case those blocs continued to tamper with the wealth and fates of this suffering nation.