Arash Karami: Gossip grows as Rouhani skips meetings/ Julian Pecquet: US threatens to bypass Baghdad and arm Sunnis against IS/Ayah Aman: Sisi supporters secure second round elections victory

Gossip grows as Rouhani skips meetings
Arash Karami/Al-Monitor/December 02/15

 Conservative Iranian media outlets have been buzzing with the news of President Hassan Rouhani’s continued absence from the country’s Expediency Council meetings, which is chaired by his political mentor, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.According to Fars News, Rouhani clashed with the Expediency Council over the writing of the country’s Sixth Development Plan, a five-year plan meant to address the needs and future goals of the country. Expediency Council member Mahmoud Mohammadi Araghi told Fars News Nov. 30 that Rouhani had objected to the council’s involvement in writing the specifics of the development plan, arguing that it is the administration’s job. However, the majority of the members of the council did not vote with Rouhani, and Rouhani skipped subsequent meetings. When asked if the president was intentionally avoiding the meetings, using a Persian term for “sulking,” Mohammadi Araghi said that this was his impression after hearing Rafsanjani’s comments about the issue. As president, Rouhani is obligated to attend Expediency Council meetings. Reports in the Iranian media have not given the exact number of meetings Rouhani has missed. Farda News, which is associated with Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was one of the first outlets to report on Rouhani’s absence. According to the Nov. 17 Farda report, Rouhani had not attended a council meeting in two months.
During a Nov. 24 press conference, administration spokesman Mohammad Bagher Nobakht said that Rouhani’s absence from the council meetings was the result of his busy work schedule. However, Rouhani’s absence from the Nov. 28 council meeting inspired comparisons to his predecessor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who boycotted Cabinet meetings for 11 days when he clashed with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his selection for the minister of intelligence position. In addition to avoiding the Cabinet meetings, according to Farda, Ahmadinejad at one point also boycotted the Expediency Council for three years. Conservative Iranian media outlets have used the opportunity to attack the president, Reformists and their long-time rival, Rafsanjani. Many shared a picture of the Nov. 28 meeting with a conspicuously empty seat next to Rafsanjani.
Yalasarat, the news site for Ansar-e Hezbollah, reported that both Rouhani and Ahmadinejad having problems with Rafsanjani’s leadership of the council shows that the council is really “for the unemployed.” The Expediency Council was originally created to resolve disputes between the Guardian Council and the parliament, but today it serves more as an advisory role for the supreme leader. According to Yalasarat, Rouhani had boycotted the council meetings previously for three months after differences arose over the governor of the Central Bank. Reformist media organizations have rejected the attacks on Rouhani and the comparisons to Ahmadinejad. Ghanoun reported that differences between Rouhani and Rafsanjani are “fiction that only has a place in the hopes of extremist movements opposed to the administration.” The Ghanoun article claimed that by using the term for “sulk,” supporters of Ahmadinejad are inappropriately attempting to draw a comparison to the former president for his refusal to show up to work for those 11 days. The article continued that Rouhani’s silence, inaction by the administration’s media team and the preoccupation of Rouhani’s supporters with the upcoming parliamentary elections have resulted in Rouhani’s political opponents effectively pursuing destructive strategies against the president.

US threatens to bypass Baghdad and arm Sunnis against IS
Julian Pecquet/Al-Monitor/December 02/15
The US has put Baghdad on notice that it could lose military support if Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi doesn’t do more to integrate Sunnis. Lawmakers of both parties have run out of patience with Shiite sectarianism that is seen as a major obstacle preventing more Sunni tribes from turning against the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS). Their frustration boiled over at a Dec. 1 hearing of the House Armed Services panel during which legislators demanded that the Obama administration turn the screws on Baghdad. “Are we … sitting side-by-side with them and being very clear in our communication that the funding that they’re getting by the will of the American taxpayer is at risk and they will lose it if they don’t progress?” asked Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., a veteran of four combat tours in Iraq. “That’s the kind of leverage I’m talking about.”The top civilian and military defense officials both concurred. “That’s the kind of leverage I’m talking about, too,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter answered. “And the answer is yes.” And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph Dunford, said he wouldn’t hesitate to recommend that the US directly support other actors on the ground if working with Abadi doesn’t pan out. Many Sunnis have been reluctant to fight IS because they feel discriminated against by the government in Baghdad and threatened by Iran-backed Shiite militias. “I don’t personally have a better idea than to enable the current government of Iraq to be successful, to provide the kind of stability and security within which we won’t see organizations like [IS],” he said. “And if at any point in the future … I believe that assumption — that we can get there — no longer obtains, then I will recommend a completely different campaign plan to get after [IS] inside of Iraq.”
The comments come amid a renewed lobbying push by Sunni tribal leaders intent on getting their concerns heard in Washington. They argue that Iranian influence runs deep in Baghdad and that Abadi’s hands are tied. At least five different groups of Iraqi Sunni leaders have registered to lobby on behalf of Sunni interests over the past 18 months, including the nonprofit Peace Ambassadors for Iraq just last week. The nonprofit is chaired by Sheikh Jamal al-Dhari, who recently told The Washington Times that Russia has been courting Sunni tribal leaders frustrated by US admonitions that they work out their concerns with Baghdad. The Dec. 1 hearing and other recent statements by lawmakers suggest their message is getting across. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called for the creation of a 100,000-man strong Sunni Arab and Turkish force during a visit to Baghdad this past weekend. The issue of Sunni dissatisfaction has also bled into the presidential race. “We need to lay the foundation for a second Sunni awakening,” Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton said in her Nov. 19 Council on Foreign Relations speech. “We need to put sustained pressure on the government in Baghdad to get its political house in order, move forward with national reconciliation, and finally stand up a national guard. Baghdad needs to accept, even embrace, arming Sunni and Kurdish forces in the war against [IS]. But if Baghdad won’t do that, the coalition should do so directly.”And Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a top-tier presidential candidate, has called for the United States to deploy special operations troops to aid a ground force of Sunni Arabs. “It’s the only way to do it,” he said Nov. 22. “They have to be defeated by a ground force and have to be made up primarily of Sunnis.” The committee that grilled Carter and Dunford had previously taken the lead in authorizing the Obama administration to directly support Kurdish and Sunni forces. The provision is included in the annual defense bill that President Barack Obama signed into law last week. “What is our strategy to get Sunnis in Iraq to be willing to fight [IS]?” asked the top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. “What is the concrete, clear plan to make that happen?”
Carter said there were four “streams” through which the US is working with Baghdad to get more Sunnis into the fight. He indicated frustration with the progress with at least two of them. “The first is through the Iraqi security forces themselves, which are now in sectarian terms about 20% Sunni — that’s one of the seeds of this whole problem from the beginning and the collapse of the Iraqi security forces,” Carter said. “We’d like more.” The second stream, he said, is the Popular Mobilization Units, mostly militias of Shiite tribal fighters that operate under the umbrella of the Iraqi Ministry of Interior. “This is where we have a problem: The Iraqi government has authorized many more Shia than Sunni [units], Carter said. “We need them to authorize more Sunni [units] and we are prepared to train them.”He said the elite US-trained Iraqi counterterrorism force and the Kurdish peshmerga are the other two streams. He also said Sunni police would also play a crucial role once IS is dislodged from Sunni areas.
“It’s not going to work for Shia forces to participate in holding and governing those,” Carter said. “We need Sunni police forces and we’re working on them too, so that when Ramadi is recaptured, when Mosul is recaptured, the peace can be kept there by people who are local.”Dunford said continued US military aid was contingent upon progress in those areas. He said one metric “is the specific number of Sunnis that we think need to be integrated and trained … and we are working that with the Iraqi government.” Dunford added, “That’s a recognized objective and they know our support is contingent upon meeting certain conditions.” Some lawmakers weren’t buying it, and urged Carter and Dunford to follow through on such threats. “Will we really walk away from Iraq if the government doesn’t meet those conditions?” asked Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas. Carter doubled down. He said the United States’ “leverage involves offering to do more for those who are pursuing the same objectives, and withholding our support from those who are taking a different path and not going down the path they’re supposed to.”He suggested the United States could bypass the Abadi government if it doesn’t find a way to convince Sunnis that fighting IS is in their best interest. “So we find alternatives; we find people who will act, if the people that we’re dealing with are not capable of that,” Carter said. “Because we have to act. And we will find such forces that are capable.”

Sisi supporters secure second round elections victory
Ayah Aman/Al-Monitor/December 02/15
CAIRO — Results of the second round of parliamentary elections held Nov. 22 and 23 painted the features of the Egyptian parliament’s political composition with the emergence of coalitions and alliances associated with the political regime. These coalitions and alliances are expected to back the regime inside Egypt’s parliament, particularly in the absence of a political party linked to, or representing, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the legislature. According to final results announced by the Supreme Electoral Commission on Nov. 25, 29.83% of eligible voters participated in second round electoral districts. The governorates of Sinai, Kafr el-Sheikh and Dakahlia registered the highest rates, for reasons that observers linked to clan and family mobilization in favor of particular candidates in those districts. The Cairo governorate recorded the lowest percentage, despite the momentum engendered in the capital’s electoral districts by the candidacy of a number of public figures with media fame. For the second time, the regime-backed “For the Love of Egypt” list won all 60 seats allocated for lists in the second round of elections. It thereby became the only list to achieve victory in the first and second rounds of parliamentary elections, with a total of 120 seats, or 20% of parliamentary seats. On the other hand, voting for the 222 individual seats saw victories achieved by only eight candidates in the second round of elections, most of whom are businessmen and media personalities, such as political analyst Samir Ghattas, businessman Talaat al-Suweidi and former Cabinet minister during Hosni Mubarak’s reign, Ali al-Mseilhi.
Thus candidates from three political parties will have runoff elections to fill the remaining 214 seats: 55 candidates from the Free Egyptians Party, 50 from the Mostaqbal Watan Party (Future of a Nation), 43 from the Wafd Party and only eight candidates from the Salafist Nour Party. These candidates, who are contesting the runoff round from Nov. 30.-Dec. 2, included 100 candidates associated with the dissolved National Democratic Party in addition to 12 women and 14 Coptic Christians. In that regard, parliamentary affairs researcher Yosri al-Azbawi told Al-Monitor, “Second round results were heavily skewed in favor of parties, due to the fact that major political parties attempted to entice and attract the most influential candidates. The Free Egyptians Party, the Mostaqbal Watan Party and the Wafd Party will continue to dominate the political scene due [to] their parliamentary representative strength; while leftist parties suffered major setbacks due to various reasons — most importantly their lack of financial resources and inability to compete in a battle mainly ruled by political money.”
Al-Azbawi added, “Despite the influence of political money in deciding the outcome of a large number of seats, the process of buying votes was unsuccessful in many districts. Among them Nasr City east of Cairo, where a Coptic candidate won, despite competition from a number of businessmen there.”
The political money phenomenon saw a strong resurgence in the second round when compared to the first round of elections held from Oct. 17-28, with 1,000 Egyptian pounds ($127) paid per vote in some electoral districts, as monitored by the Joint Local-International Election Observation Mission.
The Supreme Electoral Commission, however, contented itself with issuing a decision on the first day of voting Nov. 22, barring the taking of post-voting cellphone photos of ballots, which was the method used by candidate representatives to ascertain how people voted prior to paying them money.
The first round results that were announced Oct. 30 pointed to a pre-runoff landslide victory by candidates and parties not known for opposing the regime. Since then, preparations began under the leadership of the For the Love of Egypt list, which won a majority in the four nationwide electoral districts, to form a majority coalition of 300 parliamentarians, as Maj. Gen. Sameh Seif al-Yaza, the General Rapporteur of the said list, announced in press statements Nov. 26.
Despite the fact that nine Mostaqbal Watan candidates won as part of the For the Love of Egypt list, the unexpected successes of this newest party to the political scene amplified the ambitions of its representatives in parliament. In that regard, the party’s spokesperson, Ahmed Hassan, told Al-Monitor, “We shall not take part in any parliamentary coalitions, but shall form our own coalition therein. The party’s success in winning the largest number of seats in the face of long-established political parties is proof of our party’s great ability to gain the confidence of voters. It is also largely due to the presence of a young popular base that mobilized to achieve the results seen.”In this context, the Salafist Nour Party is the biggest loser in this electoral battle, having vacillated between participating or withdrawing from the elections after its leadership’s unexpected defeat. This is despite it being a key element of the prevailing political scene on June 30 and its support of the army in the overthrow of the Muslim Brotherhood’s regime.
Shaaban Abdel Alim, the party’s assistant secretary-general, explained to Al-Monitor, “The party fell victim to a fierce disinformation campaign by official and private media outlets, in keeping with the agendas of state intelligence institutions and businessmen. Electoral bribery and voter reluctance to participate were additional reasons for the party’s electoral failures. Yet the party’s lackluster parliamentary representation does not equate to the end of our work on the political scene, and is not indicative of weakness. The results may have been disappointing, but we shall examine the underlying reasons and endeavor to strongly return to the political arena.”The instability in north Sinai continues, particularly after the killing of two of the judges overseeing elections in a suicide attack that targeted their headquarters in el-Arish on Nov. 24. A number of judges had received anonymous threats, warning against their participation in the first round of elections. In light of this, the Supreme Electoral Commission reaffirmed the holding of runoff elections in four of the governorate’s districts. The electoral race will rage on until the second round runoff elections ends on Dec. 2, to be followed by the swearing in of a new parliament, which is expected to be less vocal against, and more acquiescent to, the government and political regime, with the political scene dominated by symbols and parties loyal to the president.