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2021-11-03 Iraq
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Iraq elections: As Sadr seeks full control, Maliki woos his bruised opponents
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[SHAFAQ] Iraq’s October elections have sharply redrawn the Shia forces’ map of influence, and heated up the rivalry between Moqtada Tater al-Sadr
 ...hereditary Iraqi holy man and leader of a political movement in Iraq. He had his hereditary rival, al-Khoei, assassinated only a few hours after the holy rival's appearance out of exile in 2003. Formerly an Iranian catspaw, lately he's gagged over some of their more outlandish antics, then went back to catspawry...
, the polls’ clear winner, and Nouri al-Maliki, the former prime minister.Sadr, a Shia holy man with millions of followers and a large gang, emerged from the elections head and shoulders above his rivals. Sadr’s Sairoon Alliance won 74 seats, with Maliki’s State of Law list coming in second with 35.
The holy man’s opponents in the Iran-backed armed factions cobbled together around only 20 seats overall. And they have not taken it well.
Continued from Page 2
Since the results became clear, supporters of the Iran-backed factions have staged sit-ins outside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone, rejected the tallies and demanded votes be manually recounted. Hundreds of complaints have been lodged with the electoral commission.
But manual recounts will not be forthcoming except for a handful of polling stations, and the results are not expected to change significantly, Iraqi officials and politicians told MEE.
Sairoon is now the largest bloc in parliament. It has the exclusive right to nominate the next prime minister and form a government.
Naturally Sadr appears delighted, and has ignored the complaints of the bruised Iran-backed factions to plough on with government-formation negotiations, leaving those groups fearing the holy man seeks total dominance and their marginalisation.
Enter Nouri al-Maliki. The former prime minister has seized on these fears and is using them as leverage to give him a position of strength, officials, commanders of armed factions, politicians and observers told Middle East Eye.
"Everyone knows that recounting the votes manually is useless and the results will not change," a senior Shia political leader close to Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
told MEE. He described the Iran-backed factions as being in an "unenviable position". Once they were in control of the country and the extra-governmental powers, "but they have lost both now".
"All of them, including Maliki, are afraid that Moqtada will swallow them up and swallow up the state, so they are looking for a way to restore things to their former status in one way or another."
According to the political leader, the bruised armed factions are gathering around Maliki hoping he can act as a counterweight to Sadr, "but the scene is too complicated for things to be that simple".
"The very large differences between the parties [in the Shia arena] that emerged from the recent elections make it very difficult to accept the traditional solutions that have prevailed over the past years."
SADR'S FRIGHTENING PROJECT
Since 2006, Iraq has been governed using a power-sharing system that divvies up positions proportionally among the greatest winners in elections.
Though each of the last four elections has produced a standout winner, various parties have been folded into recent governments.
It is a system "that produced consensual governments from which everyone would benefit, but no one is responsible for their failure", as a senior Sadrist leader described it to MEE.
"Sadr wants this to end, even if it costs him his life," he said.
On Sunday, the holy man made his position official. "I believe that the first thing that should be done in the future for the homeland is [forming] a national majority government, so that we will have in parliament two parties: loyalists ... and opposition," he said in a statement.
"Our project revolves around forming a government that we fully adopt and will take full responsibility for in case of success or failure. We are the ones who will choose the prime minister, form this government, and we will supervise its work," the senior Sadrist leader said.
"This time, Sadr will not allow under any circumstances a return to playing in the grey zone. The government will be our government, and Sadr himself will follow up on all the details on a daily basis."
The Sadrists, he claimed, will not blame others for any failures of the next government or prime minister. "Whoever wants to join us on this basis, is welcome."
The demand for full control of the new government has been seen by Sadr’s rivals such as Maliki, Ammar al-Hakim, leader of al-Hikma Movement, and former premier Haider al-Abadi as a "blatant breach" of the political norm that has preserved the supremacy of various political and armed forces since 2003.
Regardless of their electoral success, many political heavyweights in Iraq have been able to retain influence through the unofficial power-sharing system. But now Sadr is tearing up the rulebook, rivals and former partners alike are now denouncing his plans as a "coup" against them.
"They [Sadr's opponents] believe that accepting what the elections produced means an inevitable loss in the medium term, and therefore they must confront it now in an attempt to ensure their continuity and protection," a senior commander of an Iran-backed armed faction told MEE.
"They cannot confront Moqtada directly, neither politically because of the small number of their seats, nor militarily because this means the outbreak of inter-Shia fighting, so they resorted to Maliki," he added.
"On the other hand, he [Maliki] also needs them to confront Moqtada, and to re-market himself as the saviour of the armed factions and Shia."
Maliki, who rose to the premiership as a compromise candidate in 2006, grew in strength over his eight years in office, until the corruption, nepotism and sectarianism that flourished under his watch paved the way for the rise of Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
and the collapse of Iraq’s military in 2014.
That proved the end for Maliki’s premiership. But in opposition he used his know-how, contacts and prestige to gather Sadr’s opponents around him in an attempt to "erase his defeat and restore his lost throne, by forming an alliance equal to or greater than Sadr's alliance," a Shia politician said.
Though some have accused Sadr’s opponents of trying to cancel the elections and create a security crisis, one of Maliki’s advisors told MEE that the former premier instead is trying to develop the idea of "politically correcting the current situation".
"He does not seek the premiership. What he wants is to control the pace of the armed factions," the advisor said.
"These [armed factions] were subjected to an unexpected shock and are currently lost. They cannot go with Moqtada because they do not trust him, and they are not inclined to pursue the option of admitting their defeat and withdrawing," he added.
"Political correction of the situation is the solution. A political agreement that preserves everyone's influence and provides them with the required protection can end the problem and satisfy all parties."
The political correction that al-Maliki proposes, according to a senior commander of powerful Shia armed faction Asaib Ahl al-Haq, is to return to consensus and form a government of "national participation", meaning Sadr and Maliki’s camps come together. "So everyone returns to their homes, without problems," the commander told MEE.
According to a senior political leader close to Maliki, he has weighed up his and Sadr’s strengths and weaknesses, and calculated the best way to approach the results is "to present himself as a saviour and protector for the losers".
"The political process is rapidly heading towards obstruction. He wants to tell the international and domestic players that he still has a lot to do and the solutions to what has become of things must be through him," he said.
"He believes that he is the only one who is capable of containing the armed factions, so it is the time to present himself as a godfather and guide to the political process, not as a prime minister, as some promote.
"Will he succeed in any of his endeavours? This is another issue."
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Posted by Fred 2021-11-03 00:00||
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File under: Govt of Iraq
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