Iraq’s interim vice-president, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, looks almost certain to become the country’s prime minister after his closest rival, Ahmad Chalabi, dropped out of the running today.
With Mr Chalabi out of the way, Mr Jaafari was chosen by his mainly Shia United Iraqi Alliance as their candidate for prime minister, senior alliance officials said. The alliance won 48% of the vote in last month’s election and holds 140 seats in the 275-member national assembly.
Mr Jaafari, a religious Shia and head of the Islamist Dawa Party, had faced competition from inside the alliance from Mr Chalabi, a former exile who fell out with the Pentagon after intelligence he provided before the war on weapons of mass destruction subsequently proved to be unsound.
Mr Jaafari, a 58-year-old physician, still faces a challenge from the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, though Mr Allawi’s Iraqi List secured only 14% of the January 30 vote and holds 40 seats in the assembly.
So Allow-me got only 14% vote? Hahaha
I guess US puppetry didn’t work this time like it did in Afghanistan. White House must fire the person who was responsible for holding these supposed to be staged elections because they failed to bring their guy allow-me to power. The last thing US wanted was a Iranian style Islamic government in Iraq but it seems like US worst nightmares are going to become a reality. It's back to square one again
Or perhaps there was no "puppetry". Funny thing about 8 million people voting...
The great thing about the conspiracy theorists is that they always have an answer that endorses the conspiracy.
Best Wishes to the next leadership of Iraq. What a dirty dangerous thankless job it is, and how brave these people are for risking their lives for their country. Keyboard jihadis, take note of real heros.
How can the shia alliance get both PM and President position? Won't they need to give one position to the Kurds (or whoever they create an alliance)? If thats the case, the key question is which position is stronger. If President position is deemed a stronger position, likely the PM position will go to the minority partner in the coalition.
Uncle OG, you might be very pleased (or at least pretending to be) after getting the election results but your heroes in White House must be shooting themselves in the foot over this matter.
OK, you invade a country with 2/3rds Shia, what do you expect, Mormons running the country? The thought that the US can hyper-control the result of elections is from the breathless conspiracy theorists, not the US.
Do you think that Karzai was some shoo-in? If he was not successful not only would they not have elected him, they would have killed him and overrun the capital. Afghans and Iraqis impress me as a wee bit stubborn, much like Pakistanis actually. To imagine the US as a puppet master pulling all the strings is naive. No doubt the new Iraqi government will have huge Islamic component to it. Are you complaining? Do you somehow believe that an Islamic government will make Iraqi leaders genetically Anti-American? The world needs a good example of an Islamic government that actually works. Indonesia is probably as close as you can come, but corruption there is pretty legendary. If anyone can create an Islamic model that will work, it could be the Iraqis. The Iraqis are fairly cosmopolitan, and reasonably well educated compared to the rest of the Arab world. They are smart and tough. It appears as if the give and take required to give birth to a new government is actaully happening, particularly with the Kurds and the Shia.
So a decade from now, if Iraq is a model govenment, will you give the devil his due?
