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Jaafari unlikely to stay PM
Ibrahim al-Jaafari's nomination to continue for four more years as Iraq's prime minister is already in trouble, according to Iraqi sources."I doubt he will be confirmed," said a member of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia political coalition that last week nominated al-Jaafari. The nomination by the UIA, the largest political group in the new Iraqi Council of Representatives, or parliament, was supposed to make confirmation a formality. But al-Jaafari is unpopular with the Kurds, the second largest bloc in the council. And his most powerful backer, anti-American Shia militant Muqtada al-Sadr, is anathema to another bloc, led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, which the Kurds insist must be part of the new government. At the same time, al-Jaafari is having trouble holding together his own coalition, which nominated him by a majority of just one vote. One party in the Shia bloc - the Virtue Party, which voted against him - is publicly threatening to pull out. At the same time, sources in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which fielded the losing candidate, Adel Abdul Mahdi, said they have not given up hope that Abdul Mahdi will get the job. According to sources who provided for the first time a precise breakdown of the secret vote, al-Jaafari won with support from his own Dawa Party, which, including a splinter group, gave him 25 votes, as well as 29 votes from al-Sadr's faction (one member was absent), and 10 votes from independents. The Supreme Council, Virtue and the rest of the independents voted for Abdul Mahdi. There are 275 members of parliament. On Thursday, Iraqi President and Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani, during a provocative meeting with the defeated Abdul Mahdi, warned that al-Jaafari's nomination does not mean appointment, according to an Iraqi television report. He has also insisted that the new government must include Allawi, who tried to put al-Sadr in prison when Allawi was prime minister. Talabani is still expected in the next few weeks to give al-Jaafari the opportunity to draw up a cabinet. But under the Iraqi constitution, if he fails to win endorsement for his cabinet from a majority in the Council of Representatives, al-Jaafari will have to give the opportunity to someone else. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-20 |
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