Abdullah Muhsin and Gary Kent examine the battle over the Iraqi constitution

Political pluralism has exploded into life in Iraq but could be exploded itself unless the democratic parties unite to isolate terrorism and end the occupation by agreeing a decent secular constitution.

The great hopes expressed by purple power – that magic moment when over 8 million Iraqis defied death threats and intimidation to vote for the first times in their lives – could quickly fade unless petty squabbles are put aside.

It was never going to be easy – three decades of Saddam's brutal Ba'athist one party rule cast a huge shadow over the new Iraq – but national unity is vital against those forces which use physical force to increase their bargaining power, foreign fundamentalists who oppose democracy in principle and neighbouring countries who fear that a successful democracy in Iraq will promote long overdue democratisation in their own backyard.

There are mixed signals from Baghdad. It took far too long to establish a government. Different parties are jockeying for power. Tensions between key Kurdish parties also delayed things, and dangerously because it opened up space for Islamic and nationalist hardliners as well as terrorism.

And when the Government was set up, social democrats, liberals and communists were excluded from ministerial power. When the new government was sworn in, ministers' oaths were arbitrarily altered to exclude any reference to democracy and federalism.

Democracy and respect for human rights will unite people after the nightmare of Saddam. Iraq as a whole is composed of three parts: the Sunni east, the Shia south and the Kurdish north. Like most countries in the region, Iraq was originally an artifice. But each of the main groupings wishes to retain the territorial integrity of Iraq but this is best done in a federal framework.

References to federalism are particularly important to the Kurdish parties who have benefited from a large degree of autonomy since the first Gulf War and who wish to throw their lot in with Iraq but only on condition that such autonomy can continue under a federal set-up.

Thanks to their pressure, the oath was switched back and ministers were required to sign a second oath which included commitments to federalism and democracy.

This leaves a long and lingering doubt as to what motivated the exclusion of such critical concepts from the oath, and the game-plan of certain forces in Iraq.

The next key question is the drafting of a new constitution which has to be agreed by mid-August.

The role of religion in the Iraqi constitution is a controversy. Iraq is clearly a Muslim country – although the bulk of the population is composed of Shia and Sunni traditions (which long co-existed before Saddam) - but there are significant non-Muslim minorities.

Islamic hardliners have come up with a cunning plan – Mosque and State will be separate but only up to a point. They want the constitution to enshrine the view that legislation should not contradict the Koran. This would be open to a great deal of subjective judgement – could it mean fewer rights for women and fewer civil liberties for all?

There is a world-weary view or supposed realpolitik – not just on the traditional right but also on the hard left – that Arabs don't do liberal democracy.

Each country fashions its own democratic traditions but there's no reason why the essentials of a liberal model of parliamentary democracy shouldn't be part of the package put before the Iraqi people in the Autumn – an elected Assembly with checks and balances, protections for minorities, separation of Mosque and State, an independent judiciary and a free press.

Iraq has suffered enormously because of Saddam, his wars, repression and consequent sanctions but now has a chance to wipe the slate clean and unite on a federal, democratic and secular basis in a way that could not only transform Iraq but also help democratise the Middle East.

The "resistance" can be marginalised but only if the democratic forces swap short-term gains for a longer-term compact over the new constitution which suits the greater number of people in that long-suffering country.

The 55 people drafting the new Iraqi constitution have an historic task comparable to the 55 people who drafted the US Constitution when it won independence from Britain in the 18th century. Unlike then, there is a huge historical heritage of constitution-making for the Iraqi people to draw on: the sooner, the better.

Abdullah Muhsin and Gary Kent

Abdullah Muhsin is the International Representative of the Iraqi
Federation of Trade Unions and the Iraqi Teachers' Union and Gary
Kent is the Director of Labour Friends of Iraq. Both write in a
personal capacity.