Region | Iraq
Shiites nominate Al Jaafari as premier
Iraq's ruling Shiite bloc voted on Sunday to nominate incumbent Ebrahim Al Jaafari as candidate for prime minister in the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein, an alliance official said.
- Agencies
- Published: 23:32 May 3, 2009
Baghdad: Iraq's ruling Shiite bloc voted on Sunday to nominate incumbent Ebrahim Al Jaafari as candidate for prime minister in the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussain, an alliance official said.
Al Jaafari won by a single vote an United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) vote, Sami Al Askari told reporters, after weeks of wrangling that has delayed the start of talks for the formation of a new Iraqi government nearly two months after elections.
The UIA had been expected to nominate Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi as prime minister on Saturday but was unable to reach a consensus.
As the party with the biggest bloc in parliament after winning 128 of the 275 seats, the alliance will be asked by the next president to name a prime minister, to be approved by a simple parliamentary majority, under the Iraqi constitution.
But the alliance, beset by rivalries, had been unable to agree on a nominee, holding up the formation of the government.
The failure of Saturday's talks dashed expectations that Abdul Mahdi, a leader in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), would stand as the alliance's candidate and ease what appears to be an internal crisis.
The alliance chose the prime minister by simple majority vote, with Al Jaafari, a top leader of the Dawa party, winning 64 votes to Abdul Mahdi's 63.
Al Jaafari supporters celebrated outside the heavily guarded SCIRI headquarters in Baghdad as the news leaked out.
In his present 10 month- term in power, Al Jaafari's greatest achievement has been bringing the disaffected Sunni minority back into politics, but his greatest failure has been a continuing lack of security.
A former doctor, Al Jaafari, 57, whose Dawa party battled Saddam's regime for decades, promised to pacify the country and revive a long-debilitated economy. But both peace and prosperity remain elusive.
Seen as a religious Shiite with close ties to Iran, he has lacked the clout to convince insurgents, the majority of them Sunnis, to lay down their arms despite his calm authority and appeals for unity.
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