As Iraq held key provincial elections, a top UN envoy to the war-torn country warned of tough challenges ahead, including healing ethnic divisions and national reconciliation without which the recent progress could be jeopardised.
"Conditions remain far from 'normal,'" said the secretary-general's special representative for Iraq Staffan de Mistura, in an opinion piece published on Sunday in The Washington Post.
"Dozens of Iraqis continue to die each week at the hands of merciless extremists. While life here is getting better, the security situation impedes the Iraqi people's efforts to escape the morass they have been in for many years, and it limits what we can all do to help," he wrote.
Iraqi voters went to the polls yesterday to elect representatives for 440 seats in 14 out of total of 18 provinces.
The Special Representative noted that despite the difficulties surrounding the elections, ethnic tensions in the south of Iraqi Kurdistan and the need for different factions in the country to reconcile, there are signs of hope for the future.
"The performance of most provincial councils elected four years ago has been so disappointing that a pronounced 'throw the bums out' mentality exists in many places," he wrote.
More than 14,000 candidates are competing to sit on these local councils.
De Mistura also stressed that the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq's (UNAMI) work with local authorities to ensure free and fair balloting, including the training of 60,000 electoral observers, and the participation of Sunni parties this time around should increase Iraqi people's confidence in their local governments.
However, growing friction between Arabs and Kurds, especially in the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, has infected almost every aspect of politics and obstructed progress in agreeing conditions for the vital oil law, revenue-sharing and constitutional review.
"They brought the armed forces of the central government and the Kurdish region to the brink of conflict a few months ago," said de Mistura. "And they provoke the mutual distrust and unhelpful rhetoric that appears to paralyse governance at many levels."
The Special Representative urged Iraq's friends in the international community to press the national (largely Arab) and the regional (Kurdish) leaderships to soothe tensions and explore solutions through dialogue to their differences.
Underscoring the need for all the major communities -- Sunni, Shiite, Arab and Kurd -- to recognise the need for compromise to allow the budding democratic system the space to grow, Mistura wrote, "there have been several issues, including the elections law and in the disputed areas, where tense political stand-offs were ended, when an impartial outsider presented a proposal that all sides could agree on as a face-saving win."
The day after condemning the murder of three candidates, killed while campaigning for elections, de Mistura said, "While the security situation is improving, political violence in Iraq will not simply end in the coming months.
But 2009 is the second year running in which Iraqis will have a chance to experience real advances -- along with inevitable hiccups -- toward national sovereignty, democratic accountability, political stability, physical security and material prosperity, he added.
