Mideast polls can shape a new future

Two polls in January have the potential to shift the dynamics of the Middle East peace process. On Jan. 9, Palestinians will vote to choose the successor to Yasser Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority, and three Sundays later Iraqis will elect the 275-seat national assembly that will draft a permanent constitution.

The unlikely alignment of the death of Arafat and the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to pull his troops out of Gaza presents an opening for peace that may resemble the eye of a needle more than a window, but must be exploited nevertheless.

This will be the first free election in Iraqi for decades, and provides an enormous symbolic break with the Baathist misery Iraqis endured under Saddam Hussein. Importantly, key Shia groups, including those under the control of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, have thrown their weight behind the poll, though support among Sunnis, who enjoyed disproportionate power under Saddam, is more tenuous.

We still seem a long way from a secure and democratic Iraq or an independent and democratic Palestine, two developments that would promote democracy in the Middle East and help drain the region of its terror-breeding swamps. But three weeks in January have the power to inch us towards the vision.

-- The Australian, Sydney