Shia coalition split over choice of Iraq premierBy Steve Negus in Baghdad Published: February 7 2005 02:00 Last updated: February 7 2005 02:00
Divisions emerged at the weekend in a Shia coalition that appears to have swept the vote in the January 30 elections, with the two main parties each putting forward a candidate for Iraq prime minister.
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Members of the Islamic Dawa party announced over the weekend that their leader, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, would be a candidate for prime minister, quelling earlier reports that he preferred to remain in his current position as one of the country's two vice-presidents.
"He is the official candidate of the political office of the Dawa party for the post of prime minister," said Jawad al-Maliki, a member of the party's politburo.
Members of the other main party in the coalition, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, have proposed finance minister Adel Abd al-Mahdi for the top post.
Sciri members emphasise that Mr Mahdi, an economic liberal who recently visited Washington, is acceptable to the US while close to the Iraqi Shia clerical establishment.
However, the Dawa party's Mr Maliki emphasised that his group's candidate had a "background that is acceptable" to the public, and that Mr Jaafari would be perceived as "away from any external influence".
Sciri was formerly based in Iran and, although it has renounced its former goal of instituting Iranian-style clerical rule, it continues to be distrusted by many Iraqis.
Many western diplomats had expected the alliance to fracture, partly because of the coalition's ideological diversity, bringing in secularists and non-Shia as well as Islamists.
In addition to Mr Jaafari, the secular-leaning Shia politician Ahmed Chalabi and former nuclear scientist Hussein al-Shahristani have been nominated by members of the alliance as prime ministerial candidates.
However, Mr Maliki said Dawa and Sciri would agree on a joint candidate within days.
Possible candidates from outside the alliance include Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Some Iraqi politicians suggest Mr Talabani might be satisfied with the largely symbolic presidency, or the parliamentary speaker's job.
Iyad Allawi, the interim prime minister, was also reportedly hoping to retain his position, possibly as a compromise candidate, but some Iraqi politicians think the abundance of candidates for the job, plus an unexpectedly strong showing by the alliance, make it unlikely he can keep his post.
As of yesterday, the alliance had received over two-thirds of the votes counted.
The tally so far is based on voting in the predominantly Shia south and parts of Baghdad and this proportion is expected to drop considerably as ballots from the Sunni Arab and Kurdish areas are counted.
Meanwhile, a group of independent Iraqi election monitors declared the January 30 election to be "in accordance with basic international standards", although it acknowledged modest problems.
The Election Information Network, which claims to have deployed more than 8,000 monitors in 80 per cent of the country's 5,000 voting stations, said it had found instances of voters being encouraged or pressed to select a certain list in 15 per cent of polling places.
* An official in Iraq's most influential Sunni religious organisation said yesterday it would issue a fatwa, or religious ruling, calling for an end to the insurgency if Iraq's new government set a date for the withdrawal of US troops.
"If the Iraqi government sets out a position in agreement with all political trends, and it is approved by the United Nations that the US forces withdraw, then I am sure that the Islamic and nationalist resistance will end," said Sheikh Amer al-Haity, who runs the west Baghdad office of the Association of Muslim Scholars.