Fresh choice for PM could break Iraq political deadlock

IRAQI Shi’ite politicians agreed yesterday to nominate Jawad al-Maliki as prime minister, replacing the incumbent in a bid to clear the way for a long-delayed new government.

Mr al-Maliki is a top ally of outgoing Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whose nomination had sparked sharp opposition from Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders and caused a deadlock lasting months.

Leaders of the seven parties that make up the Shi’ite alliance agreed on Mr al-Maliki’s nomination yesterday evening, said Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest party in the alliance.

Mr al-Maliki won the nomination with agreement from six of the parties, said another SCIRI official, Ridha Jawad Taqi. The seventh party, Fadhila, had presented its own candidate, but only five of seven parties were needed to win a consensus agreement.

If Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties accept the nomination it could be a breakthrough in the two-month stand-off that has prevented the forming of a national unity government.

Mr al-Maliki is one of the top figures in Mr al-Jaafari’s Dawa party. However, little is known about him since he fled Iraq in the 1980s, settling in Syria and working in Dawa’s office. He returned to Iraq in 2003.

SCIRI and other parties in the alliance had initially expressed opposition to Mr al-Maliki because it feared he would be unacceptable to Sunni Arabs.

He was a top official in the commission in charge of purging members of Saddam’s ousted Ba’ath Party from the military and government. Sunnis, who made up the backbone of the Ba’ath Party, consider the commission a means of squeezing them out of influence in post-Saddam Iraq.

Sunnis appeared willing to take Mr al-Maliki, after fiercely opposing a second term for Mr al-Jaafari, who bowed out on Thursday.

“If anyone is nominated except al-Jaafari, we won’t put any obstacles in his way. He will receive our support,” Adnan al-Dulaimi, head of the main Sunni Arab coalition in parliament, said.

The Kurdish parties also indicated that they had no opposition to Mr al-Maliki.

The Shi’ites are the biggest bloc in parliament but lack the strength to govern without Sunni and Kurdish partners. As the biggest bloc, the Shi’ites get first crack at filling the prime minister’s job.

Mr al-Jaafari had held out for weeks against increasing pressure on him to step aside. Sunni and Kurdish politicians blamed the rise of sectarian tensions on Mr al-Jaafari for failing to rein in Shi’ite militias and Interior Ministry commandos, accused by the Sunnis of harbouring death squads.