Pressure cooker

Hopes that the Arab Spring could spread into what is expected to be another sweltering Iraqi summer seem to be fading. Iraq's security services are continuing their mission to extinguish the flame of revolution that has been flickering amongst its disillusioned youth for the past four months.

Weekly demonstrations calling for better governance, improved living conditions and functioning public services have been reported in most major Iraqi cities since February. A fragile youth-protest movement is attempting to replicate the pressure being applied to other Arab regimes across the Middle East and North Africa on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cross-sectarian coalition.

The protests in Iraq have more in common with those seen in Tunisia, Yemen and Syria rather than those which deposed Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. "The difference there was that there was a demand for the fall of the regime," civil rights campaigner Basil Azzawi told Deutsche Welle. "With us, we are calling for the government to improve the everyday lives of the people."

There is a growing anger amongst Iraqis about the discrepancies between the funds at the government's disposal and the realities on the street. "Our government has about $86 billion (54 billion euros) a year at its disposal," one young protestor in Baghdad told Deutsche Welle. "My brother and I don't even have $5 a day to live on."

Basic services are a problem

Irfan, another protestor who had travelled from the southern city of Basra, was particularly angry at the continued failure of the government to provide basic services, especially with the Iraqi summer and its relentless 120-degree heat approaching.

"In summer, the energy supply does not function properly," he said. "There is power for about four to six hours a day at most. So we need generators but they cost a lot of money and we earn very little."

"With the relentless summer heat the chronic power outages will once again concentrate minds and channel popular rage toward the perceived failings of those in power to make meaningful improvements to the standard of living of ordinary Iraqis," Iraq expert Kristian Ulrichsen at the London School of Economics and Political Science told Deutsche Welle.

When the first large-scale protests began in February, Maliki offered to crack down on corrupt officials and wasteful government programs, and increase fuel and food subsidies. The prime minister even cut his own salary in a bid to assuage the protestors.

Concessions and crackdown

But while offering concessions to the protestors and introducing a 100-day deadline for improving his government's performance and the lives of the populace, Maliki has moved swiftly to sap the strength of the demonstrators through harsh security measures aimed at breaking the youth movement's will.

Thousands initially thronged in Baghdad's Tahrir Square every Friday. But waves of arrests of demonstrators, journalists and intellectuals, as well as beatings and raids on protest groups, have diminished the size of the crowds, with numbers reaching only a few hundred at best and no more than a few dozen at worst.

Now, with a potential spike in protests forecast for June 7, the end of Maliki's self-imposed deadline for reform, the Iraqi government has attempted to pre-empt any resurgence with a crackdown. That makes a mockery of US President Barack Obama's claim two weeks ago that Iraq is a model for Middle Eastern countries aspiring to democracy.

Nervous government

"The protest movement in Iraq may yet regain the momentum it lost after February," Ulrichsen said. "It can do so by capitalizing on popular discontent with the political bickering and failure to deliver meaningful improvements to the standard of living of ordinary Iraqis."

"The arrest of opposition activists in Baghdad over the past week is a sign that the regime is nervous and feels vulnerable should the protest movement reactivate in any large way."

A security sweep ahead of last Friday's protest led to four young protestors being snatched by police at gun point. Days passed before the authorities acknowledged their imprisonment. After they did, the protestors were denied access to lawyers or relatives.

A meeting of an activist group called Where Are My Rights, which had convened to discuss how to free the four youths, was also raided by police in the days that followed. Thirteen in total were arrested and detained. The last of them were released after a week in prison where they had been held without charge.

It is a critical time for Maliki with little evidence that his embryonic and shaky governing coalition, which was only formed late in December, has made any of the drastic improvements detailed in the 100-day promise.

"As the deadline fast approaches there is very little chance that Maliki can deliver on his reform promises," Ulrichsen said.

As well as unrest on the streets over governance and services, Maliki also faces pressure to extract a united government agreement from his Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish coalition over whether US troops in Iraq should stay beyond their withdrawal deadline or not.

Coalition concerns

A number of US and Iraqi military officials believe Iraq is not ready to take full responsibility for its own security - a belief enforced by a recent upsurge in bombings around the country - and that a US military presence should stay on beyond the end-2011 deadline previously agreed between Baghdad and Washington.

However, the anti-US Sadrist bloc in Maliki's coalition - an essential partner in keeping sectarian tensions in check - fiercely opposes any continuing presence. Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has warned he will escalate protests and "military resistance" if US troops do not leave.

Maliki has until August to find a solution to suit everyone.

With pressure and opposition growing at such a speed, Maliki's rivals may not have a better time to topple his government. However, it would take an unlikely majority vote of no-confidence against him with at least 163 votes from the 325-seat parliament needed to oust him.

If the coalition remains intact, it could spell a widening of the divisions within the coaltion, with former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's Sunni-backed Iraqiya alliance leading the demands for a fairer distribution of power and important governmental posts.

Authors: Nick Amies, Ulrich Leidholdt

Editor: Rob Mudge, Jennifer Abramsohn