Iraqi Kurdish leaders have officially informed the main Shia Alliance that their rejection of Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the Alliance nomination for prime minister is final, political sources said on Sunday. The message was delivered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is also a top Kurdish leader, to a committee from the Alliance, the sources said. The Alliance, under growing pressure to nominate a replacement to break a deadlock over a unity government, is expected to inform other political blocs of their final decision on Jaafari today (Monday), the sources said. Representatives from the seven factions of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia bloc, formed a three member committee to discuss the deadlock over Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari with the Sunni and Kurdish parties “to be more certain” of the reasons for their opposition, said Shia official Ridha Jawad Taqi earlier on Sunday.
A Shia official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue said al-Jaafari’s supporters within his Dawa party and the movement of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were still insisting on keeping the prime minister as the Shia nominee to head the next government. Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq proposed that the new prime minister be chosen by consensus among all parties, a proposal the Shias are unlikely to accept. The constitution states that the largest bloc in parliament - the Shia alliance - has the right to nominate the prime minister subject to parliamentary approval. Al-Mutlaq said the new government should be made up of “independents, nationalists and technocrats from outside the current political parties.”
Al-Jaafari has refused to step down. Alliance leaders have been reluctant to force a move against him as long as Dawa and the al-Sadr group stick by their support. Such a move could lead to the breakup of the Shia alliance.
| So the Shiite majority, in order to remain a majority, has to remain in thrall to the Shiite minority, led by Tater. That makes him the power broken and coincidentally protects him from getting a thorough thumping from the Americans or the Iraqis. I'm not sure what this says about the political skills of the players in Baghdad, but it's probably not very complimentary. |