Iraq Update: Does the Sadr Referendum Change Outlook for Prime Minister?

The Majlis blog rounds up the latest news. The main effect of the referendum of the Sadrists, who have the most representatives in the third-placed Iraqi National Alliance, is to delay rather than advance the selection of a Prime Minister. Neither of the top candidates, Nuri Al-Maliki (State of Law) or Iyad Allawi (Iraqiya) won significant support. Personally, I can't see the "Jaafari compromise", floated here, as an alternative at this point, and does this development really make Moqtada al-Sadr a kingmaker?

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Ibrahim al-Jaafari won the Sadrist movement's referendum on the next prime minister, with 24 percent of the roughly 1.5 million ballots cast.



Jaafar al-Sadr, the son of Dawa party founder Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, placed second with 23 percent of the vote; Qusay as-Suhail, a Sadrist MP (and rumored candidate for the PM job), placed third with 17 percent.

Nouri al-Maliki was fourth, with 10 percent, and Iyad Allawi placed fifth with 9 percent (full results in English are here).

The referendum has no binding legal authority; the Sadrist leadership says it's merely a way to gauge public opinion. Jaafari is trying to position himself as something of a compromise candidate, a third party who wasn't involved in the pre-election fighting between Allawi and Maliki; the referendum gives him a boost.

The results of the referendum are clearly a roadblock to an alliance between Maliki's State of Law movement and the Sadrists (and, by extension, the Iraqi National Alliance). Maliki and Jaafari have an unpleasant history, and tensions remain despite recent efforts to bury the hatchet. Maliki won't be happy if the Sadrists condition their support on Jaafari's installation as prime minister.

Reidar Visser notes that Jaafari might also be unacceptable to the Kurdish parties:

Back in 2006 he was the PM nominee that was "unacceptable" to the Kurds, which led to his replacement by Maliki (who in turn ended up being seen as equally "unacceptable" by many Kurds).

Jaafari held a meeting yesterday with representatives from the Iraqiyya coalition; he issued a statement afterwards endorsing a government "formed without excluding any political component."

Iraq Latest: Moqtada al-Sadr Makes A Move

Amidst the continuing power plays over who will lead the next Iraq Government, almost a month after the 7 March election, the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took over the headlines on Friday, as his party held a referendum over whom they would support as Iraqi Prime Minister. (The vote was open to all Iraqis, not just Sadrists.)

Iraq: The Latest Political Moves

Sadr's party won 40 seats in the 325-member Iraqi Parliament, compared to the 91 of the Iraqqiya list headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and the 89 of current Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law list. That does not make the Sadrists "a kingmaker", as The New York Times is at pains to point out. However, it does mark a notable shift of power: within the Iraqi National Alliance list of "religious Shia" groups, the Sadrists overtooked the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which had been the dominant party.


The effect in the non-Iraqi media has been marked. Only a few days ago, some reporters were still stuck in the misleading narrative that Allawi "won" because Iraqqiya had a narrow plurality of seats. That was plainly not the case, given the difficulties for Allawi in putting together a coalition of 163 seats. At the same time, many journalists were making the mistake of writing out the Iraqi National Alliance as the "third-place" group.

Now the pendulum has swung. The simple maths --- 91+ the 70 of the INA puts Allawi on the verge of a majority in Parliament; same for Maliki with 89+70 --- highlight that INA has a top-table seat in a deal, and Sadr is trying, with the weight of the 7 March result behind him, to be the leading INA representative.

So Friday's move for a referendum is politically significant. Unless Maliki and Allawi can resolve their personal differences and deep animosities between their two lists to forge a "grand coalition", Sadr will get what he has long sought: a place inside the Iraqi tent of power.

Mark the change, especially for those who see Iraq as a continuing narrative of American power. Less than six years ago, US officials were putting out orders to capture or kill the upstart cleric Sadr; less than two years ago, the US military was pushing and joining Maliki and Iraqi forces to "crush" the Sadrists.

This is now, first and foremost, an Iraqi story. And I suspect there are many chapters to come.

Iraq: The Latest Political Moves

The Majlis political blog offers a round-up of the latest manoeuvres for power after Iraq's inconclusive election:

The horse-trading continues in Iraq: Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is trying to cement a possible merger with the Iraqi National Alliance [predominantly "religious" Shi'a), but the Sadrist movement seems reluctant; and [former Prime Minister] Iyad Allawi is trying to attract Kurdish support, but the Kurds seem reluctant.

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There's a lot to keep track of, so we've rounded up a bullet-point list of the latest political maneuverings. We'll do similar lists in the coming days as they're needed.



*Allawi met with Iraqi president Jalal Talabani. Allawi is trying to drum up Kurdish support -- Talabani is a Kurd -- but that will be a difficult slog: Many Kurds distrust Allawi's Iraqiyya coalition, not because of Allawi himself, but because of the staunch Arab nationalism of some coalition partners (particularly the al-Hadba party).

Kurds worry that they will undermine their own interests by joining Iraqiyya: "For us, dealing with al-Iraqiya List is impossible," Feryad Rawanduzi, a senior Kurdish official from President Talabani's party, told the Kurdish Peyamner news agency. "There are some groups within al-Iraqiya List whose agenda and way of thinking is different from us."

*Maliki met with [former Prime Minister] Ibrahim Jaafari, the head of the National Reform Trend, a member of the Iraqi National Alliance.

There's a lot of bad blood between the two men: Maliki succeeded Jaafari as the head of the Dawa party, and Jaafari didn't leave voluntarily. But they seem to be burying the hatchet (Maliki is trying to craft a merger with the INA, remember), which has the Sunni Arab world once again fretting about Iran's influence.

*Moqtada al-Sadr asked his supporters to vote on whether the Sadrist movement should back Allawi or Maliki (or a third party). Sources close to Sadr say he wants Allawi to play an important role(عربي) in the next government; a referendum could give Sadr some political cover to split from his colleagues in the INA and back Allawi.

*Allawi's aides met with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'ite cleric, and asked him to issue an interpretation of article 76 of the Iraqi constitution, which deals with the formation of a new government. Iraq's Federal Supreme Court (which may not even have jurisdiction over the issue) ruled last week that article 76 allows either Maliki or Allawi to form the next government.