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THE WORLD

U.S. urges Iraqis to ‘pick up pace’ on seating government

With troop drawdown looming, ambassador expresses concern

by Ernesto Londoño

baghdad — U.S. Ambassador

Christopher R. Hill expressed deep concern Monday about how slowly Iraqi officials have moved to seat a new govern- ment, saying they need to “get this show on the road.” U.S. officials see the formation of a new government and a smooth transfer of power as cru- cial precursors to the scheduled drawdown of all but 50,000 troops by the end of August. Hill’s unusually blunt com- ments reflect growing U.S. anxi- ety about a process that has been slowed by a host of factors. They include the close results from the March 7 parliamentary elec- tions, a recently ordered manual recount of the approximately 2.4 million ballots cast in Bagh- dad, and ongoing efforts to dis- qualify candidates for alleged sympathies to Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. “Obviously, one would like to see them pick up the pace,” Hill told journalists at the U.S. Em- bassy on Monday evening. “While we al- ways knew this was going to be a tough pe- riod, we are approaching almost seven weeks” since the vote. The leaders of the two blocs that gar- nered the most votes, Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Sunni-backed secular Shiite Ayad Allawi, contend that there were serious irregularities that affected the elections’ out- come. Maliki, whose coalition trailed Allawi’s by two seats, de- manded the manual recount. Allawi says rival Shiite politi- cians, acting with Maliki’s bless- ing, abused the authority of a commission empowered to weed out Baath sympathizers in order to weaken his bloc. “I would say this is a close

election, which has caused great strain, great challenges to all of Iraq’s nascent democratic insti- tutions,” Hill said. He added that the judicial system, which has had to weigh in on some of the disputes, “has not been im- mune.”

Adding to the uncertainty,

Iraqi officials announced Mon- day that at least one candidate in Allawi’s bloc had been found un- fit for office because of alleged ties to the Baath Party. If an appeals panel signs off on

that decision, and if other elect- ed candidates in Allawi’s Iraqiya slate are disqualified in the com-

ing days, the bloc could lose its two-seat lead. That would fur- ther delay the process and could trigger anger among Sunnis. The Obama administration or- dered the military in early 2009 to draw down to 50,000 troops by the end of August 2010. The assumption was that elections would be held in December or January and that a new govern- ment would be in place well be- fore the deadline.

Despite a three-month delay and the recent wrangling, U.S. commanders say they are still on track to meet the drawdown deadline. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has said he would determine two months after the vote whether the drawdown timeline remains sensible. After the December 2005 par- liamentary elections, it took nearly six months to form a gov- ernment. At the time, Iraqi offi- cials did not have to grapple with candidate disqualifications or manual recounts. Some Iraqi and U.S. officials see dangerous parallels between the current impasse and the one that followed the 2005 vote, when feelings of Sunni disen- franchisement helped fuel the worst period of the insurgency. “We are facing a dangerous

slippery slope,” said Atheel al- Nujaifi, a leading figure in the Iraqiya slate. “No one can predict its con- sequences.” In

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010

ROMEO RANOCO/REUTERS

A boy crosses a garbage-strewn beach in Baseco, on Manila Bay. “If you are poor, the Philippines is the wrong place to be,” said one economist.

For Filipinos, largess that doesn’t last

PRE-ELECTION

‘FIESTA’

2006,

U.S. Ambassador Christopher R. Hill cited “great challenges” to Iraq’s democratic institutions.

Sunni extrem- ists began at- tacking Shiite militias by us- ing powerful bombs. Simi- lar attacks in recent weeks, including Fri-

day’s bombings targeting Shiite worshipers, have raised fears that Shiite militias could once again take up arms in areas where residents feel abandoned by the government. Unlike in the period after the 2005 elections, the current polit- ical disputes have been largely peaceful. Iraqi and U.S. officials say an outbreak of political vio- lence is less likely now because Iraq’s security forces are stron- ger and less politicized than they were in 2006. But many say a lengthy period of government paralysis raises the probability of a new outbreak of violence. “Right now the violence is not

a strategic threat to the state,” said Brett McGurk, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a senior Iraq ad- viser to the Bush and Obama ad- ministrations. “If there is a sense that the drivers of violence are political parties, then you start to have the seeds of a break- down.”

londonoe@washpost.com

Special correspondent Jinan Hussein contributed to this report.

Traditionally, aid to poor drops off after vote

by Blaine Harden

manila — It’s election season in the Philippines, and the short- term forecast is for manna from heaven. For voters who live in Baseco, a slum built on garbage beside Ma- nila Bay, it’s hard to keep track of all the incoming goodies. Roads have been paved. Playgrounds have been built. A maternity clin- ic is under construction. One can- didate bankrolled a beauty con- test. Another sent in doctors bearing free antibiotics. Demoli- tion of squatters’ huts has been halted. Free food is expected on May 10, election day. “It is like a fiesta,” said Ray Campanera, senior councilor in the local government here. “Life is a little bit happier.” Yet for the residents of Baseco, as for the poor who account for a third of the 92 million people in the Philippines, pre-election good times are almost always followed by post-election betrayal. Politicians who win election in this former U.S. colony have one of the worst records in Southeast Asia for stiffing the poor, cod- dling the rich and indulging themselves, according to a moun- tain of data and a chorus of econ- omists. Bad governance has gone hand in glove with rising crime, a surge in political killing, stagnant for- eign investment, and a restless

Presidential front-runner Benigno Aquino III, left, and main rival Manuel Villar Jr.

search by tens of thousands of doctors, nurses and other highly skilled Filipinos for opportunity outside their homeland. About 1.7 million Filipino immigrants now live in the United States, the sec- ond-largest immigrant group, af- ter Mexicans. Aweak central government has also provided an opening for Is- lamist extremists operating in the southern Philippines, where for eight years U.S. Special Forces have been training the Philippine military in guerrilla tactics. This is the only country in Southeast Asia where the abso- lute number of poor people has increased since 1990, according to the Asian Development Bank. “If you are poor, the Philip- pines is the wrong place to be,” said Arsenio M. Balisacan, a pro- fessor of economics at the Univer- sity of the Philippines. And it’s not because the overall economy is in trouble. Until the global recession, growth had clipped along here at about 5.5 percent for much of the past dec- ade. But thanks to elected pol- icymakers — the most influential of whom tend to come from a handful of families — poverty, hunger and income inequality have increased along with growth. Meanwhile, the percentage of the gross domestic product spent

DIGEST

SUDAN

No surprises in vote: Bashir retains power

As observers predicted, Sudan’s

first multiparty elections in more than two decades did not change the status quo. In the north, President Omar

Hassan al-Bashir will remain in power after winning 68 percent of the vote, according to results re- leased Monday. In the semiauton- omous south, Salva Kiir Mayardit will retain his post as president after winning 93 percent of the vote.

Bashir will not earn any more legitimacy from his victory: The elections were marred from the start by allegations of vote-rig- ging, and the main opposition parties boycotted the ballot. Ba- shir becomes the first head of state charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague to be reelected. The election was a necessary step to pave the way for a 2011 ref- erendum in which southerners will decide whether they want to secede from Sudan. The question now is whether

the referendum will actually be held or whether Sudan will once again descend into civil war. As the elections showed, Bashir and his ruling party have a very poor record when it comes to allowing

France flight to Paris. One of No- riega’s attorneys, Yves Leberquier, said that once Noriega arrived, he would be presented to a prosecu- tor and would “confirm his oppo- sition” to the arrest warrant. Noriega was ousted as Pana-

ma’s leader after a 1989 U.S. in- vasion. He was convicted of drug racketeering and related charges in Miami in 1992. Shortly before his sentence ended in late 2007, France requested his extradition.

—Associated Press

RUSSIA

Cardin weighs in on prisoner’s death

A U.S. senator urged the State

Department on Monday to deny entry to the United States to all Russian officials allegedly respon- sible for the prison death of a law- yer.

PETE MULLER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Backers of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement celebrate election results in Juba, the capital of semiautonomous southern Sudan. Salva Kiir Mayardit will continue as president of the south.

electoral competition, especially the kind that could reduce his grip on Sudan. And the south, home to most of the country’s oil riches, plays no small role in Su- dan’s power structure.

—Sudarsan Raghavan

FRANCE

U.S. sends Noriega overseas for trial

The United States extradited former Panamanian dictator

Manuel Noriega to France on Monday, clearing the way for him to stand trial there on money laundering charges. The former strongman, who was being held in a federal prison in Miami, was placed on an Air

Sergei Magnitsky died in No- vember after spending almost a year in jail. He was awaiting trial on tax evasion charges linked to his work with a British investor barred from Russia because of al- legations that he was a security risk.

Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-

Md.) released a letter he wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rod- ham Clinton asking her to deny entry to the United States to sev- eral senior officials in the Russian

Interior Ministry, the Federal Se- curity Service and the Federal Tax Service. Magnitsky’s colleagues and attorney think the public offi- cials listed by Cardin were in- volved in the lawyer’s death.

—Associated Press

Jaroslaw Kaczynski to run to suc- ceed his brother: Polish opposi-

tion party leader Jaroslaw Kac- zynski said he will run in summer elections to replace his twin brother, Lech, as president after his death early this month in a plane crash in Russia. “The good of Poland is a common duty that requires an ability to overcome personal suffering, to undertake the task despite a personal trag- edy,” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who served as prime minister in 2006- 2007, said in a written statement Monday.

Belgian government’s resigna-

tion accepted: King Albert II of Belgium accepted the govern- ment’s resignation Monday after negotiations failed to resolve a long-simmering dispute between Dutch- and French-speaking poli- ticians over a bilingual voting dis- trict in and around Brussels, the country’s capital. The king had waited since last week to see if last-ditch talks could keep the coalition government of Prime Minister Yves Leterme together.

—From news services

on health care, public education and farm services has stalled or declined. Two-thirds of the poor live in rural areas and are de- pendent on farming for their live- lihood, but investment in farm- to-market roads and other basic infrastructure has fallen. “The social conscience of the elite in this country is wanting,” said Victor A. Abola, an econo- mist at the University of Asia and the Pacific. “The richest people who are involved in politics don’t want to pay their taxes.” Abola estimates that tax eva- sion deprives the government of about a third of its annual operat- ing revenue, crippling the state’s capacity to pay down debts or in- vest in infrastructure that would increase productivity and im- prove living standards. A report this month by the

Asian Development Bank said the government should stop granting tax exemptions to the rich, crack down on tax evaders and enforce anti-corruption policies. Politicians running in the up-

coming elections are not denying the need to do much more for the poor. It is the primary talking point of the 85,000 candidates running for 17,000 elective posi- tions, as they try to secure the loy- alty of the country’s 50 million registered voters, many of whom are poor and getting poorer. The campaign slogan of the presidential front-runner, Sen. Benigno Aquino III, says: “With- out corrupt officials, there are no poor people.”

Aquino is beloved for being the only son of assassinated opposi- tion leader Benigno Aquino Jr. and of former president Corazon Aquino, who died last year. But after 12 years in public office, he has little record of introducing legislation aimed at poverty re-

duction. Aquino’s main challenger, Sen.

Manuel Villar Jr., counters with: “End poverty, once and for all.” Villar grew up in a Manila slum and became a real estate billion- aire. He says he understands pov- erty like no other politician in the country and knows how to allevi- ate it. His critics say he became rich, in part, by using his political influence. Presidents here have enormous power to shape government pol- icy. Whoever wins could improve tax collection, crack down on cor- ruption and increase spending on schools, health care and rural roads.

Still, the history of the Philip- pines suggests that spending on the poor — together with earnest speeches about their needs — peaks before national elections. The current deluge of pre-elec- tion spending is expected to boost the country’s economy through May, according to the Asian De- velopment Bank. “You have to understand how campaigns are conducted in this country,” said Abola, the econo- mist. “Candidates and their back- ers bring in money they have stashed abroad or kept in dollar accounts. There is a real redistri- bution effect.” Here in Baseco, big-ticket cam- paign spending has come cour- tesy of Manila’s mayor, Alfredo S. Lim. Behind huge yellow signs bearing his name, laborers are working overtime building the maternity clinic. “Of course Mayor Lim has my

vote,” said Diane Espinoza, who grew up in Baseco. “He is taking care of the people.”

hardenb@washpost.com

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