New Arab Spring?

Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi has offered to resign if political parties can agree on his replacement. An announcement to this effect has been made by President Barham Saleh who is also drafting a new election law to will allow early elections. The resignation comes as thousands of Iraqis continue protesting in Baghdad, Karbala, and elsewhere against corruption while demanding more jobs and better social services. More than 250 have been killed in clashes with security forces.

According to reports, tens of thousands of demonstrators have tried to swarm Baghdad’s Green Zone, where Iraq’s governing class lives. They have been met by Iraqi security forces firing tear gas and live ammunition. The death toll is believed to have passed 250 people. The protests against Mahdi began on October 1. The initial grievance was the delays in reforms he had promised upon coming to power last year. The protests escalated nationwide after security personnel killed around 150 people in the first week of agitation. The economy remains the biggest driver.

Even though security has greatly improved since Daesh was fought off in 2017, Iraq’s economy remains off track. The government remains highly dependent on oil, and almost half the budget is spent on bureaucrats’ salaries, pensions and perks. And joblessness is so high that the government stopped releasing unemployment statistics in 2017, when, according to the Wall Street Journal, “the jobless rate was 13% and youth unemployment nearly double that.” At the same time, electricity and water supply remain problematic, while health and education are in woeful condition.

The fall of two Middle Eastern governments in quick succession has raised whispers of a new Arab Spring, but a fairer argument is that it is really a continuation of the last one.

The uprisings of 2011 did not bring freedom from tyranny in most of the affected countries, but they did open the gates to wars in Syria, Yemen and Libya, and bring a new military dictator to power in Egypt.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2019.

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