Campaigning in Iraq's first national elections began Wednesday under the shadow of a rampant insurgency, news agencies reported. Of the some 70 parties that have registered to take part in the Jan. 30 elections, eight have been identified to be Christian parties.

"Eight Christians political parties registered for January elections hope to be supported by the Iraqi expatriates," Italy-based Asian News reported Wednesday.

According to the news agency, Iraqi expatriates living in 14 countries will join in the Jan. 30 voting to elect a 275-member assembly that will appoint a government and draft a constitution. Half a million participants are expected to vote out of the 800,000 eligible voters of more than 3 million Iraqi expatriates living in Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Sweden, Turkey, the UK, the UAE, and the USA.

Many Christians are hoping that Iraq will become a democratic and free secular state. However, now as Christians are only a sliver of Iraq's population after a string of church bombings in recent months prompted Christians to flee the country, church leaders fear the ongoing exodus could make it difficult for Iraq to develop into a nation that values religious pluralism and tolerance.

In recent months thousands of Christians have left Iraq with estimates ranging from 10,000 to 40,000. "Their links to Americans, often as translators, have put them under threat," Knight Ridder News reported.

"Some anti-U.S. Sunni Muslims warn that anyone aiding the Americans should be killed."

As the emergence of a fundamentalist Islamic government in Iraq could lead to a complete exodus of Christians, persecution watchdog groups such as Open Doors believe this 'power move' kind of persecution may be motivated by politics.

"That's really the goal of the terrorists—to drive out the Christian community which numbers about 500-thousand from Iraq, so that when they're making a new government, they will not have any Christians to share the government with or give religious freedom," said Open Doors' Jerry Dykstra a few weeks after the United States formally handed sovereignty to Iraqi officials on June 28.

In August, one Southern Baptist worker told the Baptist Press News Agency that the coordinated bombings that killed eleven people and injured dozens in Baghdad and Mosul was said to be the work of a rag-tag alliance composed of extreme Muslim "holy warriors" and that they were aimed on provoking a civil war in Iraq, creating chaos that would give the "Jihadists" an opportunity to take control.

According to the worker, extremists who had participated in the bombings on Aug. 1, targeted the congregations as symbols of a free Iraq and not specifically because they were Christian. The Jihadists—composed of Islamic extremists, members of the disposed dictator’s Baath Party, criminals freed by Saddam Hussein just before the fall of Baghdad, and unemployed former members of the Iraqi army and security forces—are drawn from many nations and from different sects of Islam, the worker said.

"They are temporarily united against anyone who opposes their radical Islamic-republic views. ... Members of the Christian minority are being included in the anarchists' attack against an emerging pluralistic society."

The worker added that the creation of an Iraqi government and steps being taken toward democracy have raised the stakes for factions who want to control the country and its vast oil wealth.

"Jihadists see the present situation as an opportunity to assert universal control over Iraq, something they could never have dreamed of achieving under Saddam Hussein," he added. "This group is opposed to every form of authority and religion but their own narrow band of Islamic belief."

The worker also pointed out that the Jihadists not only attacked Christian churches, but also Islamic mosques. "The aim of the church bombings is strictly political, not religious, and like similar bombings that targeted mosques, they are meant to instigate sectarian and confessional strife among the one Iraqi people," he said.

Sources say Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Eyad Allawi expects an escalation of attacks by Iraqi fighters in Iraq before and after the Jan. 30 elections.




Kenneth Chan
Ecumenical Press