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Iraqi opposition planning attempt to oust Jaafari
Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s nomination as prime minister of Iraq is facing stiff opposition, with non-Shia parties actively seeking to block him from forming a government.

According to senior politicians and western diplomats, efforts to prevent Mr Jaafari from establishing a new cabinet have intensified this week as Iraq grapples with an upsurge in sectarian bloodshed following last Wednesday’s bombing of one of Shia Islam’s holiest sites.

Sunni Arab, Kurdish and secular parties are expected to ask the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia coalition that emerged as the largest bloc in parliament after the December parliamentary elections, to withdraw Mr Jaafari’s nomination. “It’s a real crisis,” said a senior Iraqi official.

Mr Jaafari, leader of the Shia Islamist Dawa party, was nominated by the UIA. With the support of the movement led by radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, he narrowly won an internal UIA vote, defeating Adel Abdel-Mehdi, a vice-president and the candidate of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), a rival Shia party.

The Jaafari nomination, however, has frustrated Iraq’s other political factions, including Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular forces. Many Iraqi officials criticise as ineffective and indecisive Mr Jaafari’s performance as interim prime minister over the past year.

They fear his leadership of Iraq’s first government with a four-year-term could aggravate an already perilous security crisis.

Meanwhile, the US and Britain, eager to see a stable government take over and facilitate the eventual exit of their troops from Iraq, have also been troubled by the prospects of a continued Jaafari administration. The Sadrist movement’s support for his nomination has added to the international unease.

Mr Jaafari has said he wants to form a government of national unity. But even Kurdish parties – the allies that gave his cabinet the two-thirds parliamentary majority approval it needed last year – are, at least for now, withholding their backing.

In a sign of the rising tensions between the Kurds and Mr Jaafari, Jalal Talabani, Iraqi president and leader of one of Iraq’s two main Kurdish parties, on Tuesday criticised the prime minister for making a visit to Turkey without consulting other senior members of the government.

“Talabani’s criticism was a way of saying that a Jaafari government won’t work,” said a western diplomat.

Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular parties are considering jointly issuing a “national programme”, a move that could lead to an alliance with more members in parliament than the UIA.

There are also attempts to encourage Sciri to break away from the UIA, and join the competing alliance. However, Shia religious authorities, led by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, are calling on political parties representing their community to remain united. “Forming a government of national unity has become more important [after the recent violence] – but also more difficult to achieve,” said the senior official.

The political crisis comes amid continued violence, with at least 30 people killed yesterday in bombings and mortar attacks in Baghdad and neighbouring regions.

In the worst attack, 23 people were killed in a car bomb in a mostly Shia district of Baghdad. Gunmen last night ambushed a police convoy north of Baghdad killing at least two passengers and abducting 10, according to police reports.
Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=144226