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Iraqi Shia groups forge poll alliance
Iraq's ruling Shia Muslim-led coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, will contest December's parliamentary election as a single electoral list. Foreign officials said on Thursday that talks late into the night had resolved arguments that had threatened to break-up the coalition. Among changes agreed, the movement of nationalist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr would have a more formal role in the alliance, Abbas al-Bayati, an Alliance member of parliament, told Reuters.
That should certainly introduce the voice of sweet reason into the governing process...
A formal announcement would be made later in the day, he added. Three principle Shia movements are involved in the alliance - the powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) formed in exile in Iran to oppose Saddam Hussein and led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the Dawa party of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, and al-Sadr's movement. Although al-Sadr has three allies in the present interim cabinet, he has been ambivalent in public about the government.
Posted by: Fred 2005-10-28
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=133396