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Baghdad (AFP) April 2, 2010 Iraq's Sadrists started voting on Friday on who should lead the war-torn country, as they try to capitalise on a strong electoral showing that made them the biggest religious bloc in March polls. The movement loyal to radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says its two-day nationwide "referendum" will give all Iraqis, not just its supporters, a chance to choose a prime minister from five Shiite candidates. "The political situation is complicated and Sayyid Moqtada al-Sadr has always said that the best advisers are the Iraqi people," Hazem al-Araji, one of the movement's leaders, told AFP. The Sadrists' bitter enemy, incumbent Nuri al-Maliki, is among the candidates, alongside secular ex-premier Iyad Allawi whose Iraqiya bloc narrowly edged out Maliki's State of Law Alliance in the March 7 elections. Maliki's predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari will also be on the ballot for the poll, which opened Friday morning, with a second day of voting due on Saturday. Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi and Jaafar al-Sadr, the son of an ayatollah who founded Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party and was assassinated by Saddam's regime in 1980, are also among the candidates. Araji insists the referendum will not be a re-run of the election, the second since Saddam Hussein was ousted in a US-led invasion in 2003. In the general election, "Iraqis chose who they wanted as their MP and not their prime minister," the white-turbaned cleric said. The decision to hold the plebiscite was made by Sadr himself, because "the political parties that contested the election have been unable to select a prime minister," said Ahmed Khalaf, one of three members of a committee charged with organising the vote. "The parties are neck-and-neck and they all have a candidate for the post... and this has prevented the rapid formation of a government." The referendum results will give the Sadrists, whose 30-something leader has been in Iran for about two years, ammunition in negotiations with other blocs to form a government, particularly with State of Law and Maliki. None of the four main blocs -- Iraqiya, State of Law, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) of which the Sadrists are the largest faction, and Kurdistania, comprising the autonomous Kurdish region's two long-dominant blocs -- are close to forming a majority on their own. At least two of those four are required to reach the 163-seat parliamentary magic number. "With this referendum, the Sadrists have made a shrewd move to put pressure on the other political parties," said Hamid Fadhel, a Baghdad University political science professor. "The negotiations with State of Law have stalled and the Sadrists want to push for someone other than Nuri al-Maliki (as premier), armed with popular support," he added. Indeed, for the Sadrist movement, the equation appears to boil down to "Anyone but Maliki." The rivals share a deep hostility that transcends their otherwise shared sectarian roots and centralising tendencies, due largely to a military offensive ordered by Maliki against the Mahdi Army, the movement's armed wing. But Khalaf insists Maliki is not a deal-breaker. "We do not have red lines with anyone -- the evidence is that Maliki's name is in the referendum," he said. He quickly added, however: "We suffered from Maliki. He acted like Saddam, even worse than Saddam, towards us. He imprisoned hundreds of us, bombed us with planes and expelled us from the circles of power." Araji hammered home the point: "Maliki had said he would come first with a big lead, but in fact the elections showed his popularity is in decline." The referendum appears to be the latest in a well-organised campaign that has seen the Sadrist bloc's voice in Iraqi politics grow dramatically. It has won 40 seats in the INA, eight more than in the previous parliament and more than double that of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, long the largest Shiite religious movement in Iraq. The 2005 parliamentary elections, the first since Saddam was overthrown, "enabled us to examine our strengths and our weaknesses," said Khalaf. "We are a religious movement and the mosques on Friday are our platform. We have managed to convince the people that we remain a popular movement... and a saviour."
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Mounting obstacles block efforts to form new Iraq governmentBaghdad (AFP) March 31, 2010 Charges of Iranian meddling, constitutional conflicts and bad blood between bitter rivals: obstacles blocking the formation of a new government have piled up in the aftermath of Iraq's general election. Little progress has been made in forming a government coalition in the more than three weeks since the March 7 poll, while negotiations between its main blocs have revealed key differences be ... read more |
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