BAGHDAD // When Iraq's electricity minister Karim Wahid tended his resignation on Monday, he accused the demonstrators trying to push him from office of playing politics with the nation's power generation crisis. In a broadcast on state-run television, Mr Wahid said the street protests had been "politicised" in a way that obstructed work to resolve crippling electricity shortages. A similar refrain has been heard from other allies of the prime minister Nouri al Maliki, who is under pressure as he struggles to retain his position after divisive and inconclusive elections in March.
Rather than viewing the protests as a genuine outpouring of grassroots anger at the government's performance, they believe opposition parties are manipulating public fury, in a cynical attempt to block Mr al Maliki's return as prime minister. But interviews with The National suggest something new may be afoot in Iraq. While it is still too early to tell if the demonstrations mark a watershed in the post-Saddam Hussein era, there are indications of a shift in Iraq's political landscape.
Those involved in the protests - and currently planning future demonstrations - say tribes, religious figures, secular intellectuals and political independents are behind the street marches, not established political parties. Hamid Harbi, a leading Nasariyah sheikh with the Daeyya tribe, said: "The tribes council in Nasariyah responded to a request from the tribes council in Basra to arrange a huge demonstration. In fact, we have been planning something like this for a long time [in Nasariyah] but the Basra protests broke out and so we decided it was a good opportunity to make our own protest, to support them."
Sheikh Harbi said Iraq's powerful tribal network, which includes both Sunni and Shiite Arabs, had come to the conclusion that the authorities had failed to fulfill their duties to the public. "We understand the government has not done enough," he said. "If politicians stopped stealing, if they ended the corruption and bickering they might be able to do their job properly, which is to give the Iraqi people a tolerable standard of living.
"People have a right to life - to electricity, to jobs, to water, to a future. That is what these protests are about." Iraq's influential Shiite clerical establishment, which typically avoids overt involvement in politics, has given its blessing to the protests. In a Friday sermon the day before the Basra demonstrations, an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani was scathing in his criticism of the political elite, accusing its members of providing for themselves and neglecting the masses.
"Let the officials feel the suffering of the people and try to live 18 or 20 hours without electricity," Sheik Abdul Mahdi al Karbalaie said during his sermon in Karbala, as temperatures soared to above 50 degrees Celsius. "If they do so they will try to find a quick solution to the problem." His remarks highlighted the fact that politicians are insulated by their positions and wealth from the power crisis. Unlike the majority, which receives as little as one hour of electricity a day from the state grid, politicians have the money to pay for 24 hours of power from private generators, in order to run air conditioning units.
Ala Allawi, an independent political analyst from Wasit province, rejected claims political parties orchestrated the protests. He is helping to organise a demonstration scheduled to take place tomorrow outside the provincial government offices in Kut. "For years the politicians of all sides have been stealing and failing, and the Iraqi people have been silent on this," he said. "We were waiting for instructions from our religious leaders to do something about this, but those instructions never really came. So now the people are saying 'enough is enough' and they are taking matters into their own hands."
The political parties and religious establishment were now scrabbling to catch up with popular sentiments, he said. "Now is the time for us to take our rights and if that means people will get shot in the protests, then people are prepared to die. Ordinary Iraqis have run out of patience." Claims that party politics are involved - at least at some level - are not without merit. Mr al Maliki's State of Law coalition controls the provincial councils in both Basra and Nasariyah, where protesters demanded the resignation of local leaders, as well as the electricity minister.
In Basra, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), Ahmed al Sulayti, was a major supporter of the demonstrations and vocal critic of security services' reaction to the unrest. The Sadrists have also backed the protesters. But, critically, they deny orchestrating the demonstrations, saying they are following the people, not leading them. "We are just supporting them, we are not the organisers," said Bahar al Araji, a Sadrist official. "We encourage the Iraqi people to extend their demonstrations to every province. It is an expression of freedom, it is a demand for their rights."
The Sadrists and ISCI are part of the National Alliance, which includes the State of Law coalition and, as a consequence, Mr al Maliki. Yet while ostensibly on the same side in national political terms, they are divided over who should be Iraq's next prime minister, with neither ISCI nor the Sadr movement wanting Mr al Maliki to retain the post. Other rivals to Mr al Maliki have also thrown their weight behind the protests, including the Iraqiyya list, which won the most seats in the March 7 election but too few to claim an outright parliamentary majority. As with the Sadrists and ISCI, Iraqiyya denies igniting the outbursts, seeing them as something aimed at the incumbent political class in general.
"The accusations that 'political parties' are behind the protests or pushing them to violence is not correct and it is not fair," said Maysoon Damaluji, an Iraqiyya spokeswoman. "Maliki says that because he wants to cover his failures of the last four years." She said the anger - described as "extraordinary" by Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari - was a result of the seriousness of the issue.
"When we talk about electricity in the summer here, we are literally talking about life and death for some people," Ms Damaluji said. "It's so hot in parts of the country that it's dangerous to your health, that's why the anger is so deep. "No politicians made these demonstrations, they are the natural result of a feeling among the Iraqi people that it is time to have solutions, it was an outpouring - the peoples' mind and mood just exploded."
@Email:nlatif@thenational.ae psands@thenational.ae Phil Sands contributed to this report from Damascus