| Just months after falling out with the United States and being written off by his rivals as politically washed up, Ahmad Chalabi is back in from the cold. The leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which grouped Saddam Hussein's enemies in exile, has emerged as a power broker in the main election list for the country's Shiite majority, which could dominate the Jan. 30 ballot. Chalabi used his connections with influential Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani to help draw up a mostly Shiite list backed by the Iranian-born scholar, people familiar with the list said. "This list is not about a theocracy or an Islamic Republic of Iraq. It is about democracy and representation of the Iraqi people," Chalabi told Reuters in an interview. Under the postwar election system, Iraq will be treated as a single electoral district. The electorate will vote for lists of candidates. The number of votes received will determine how many people on the list get into the 275-seat National Assembly. Names high on the list therefore have the best chance of being elected. Chalabi is 10th on the Shiite list. |