Iraq’s Shi’ites scramble for new PM nominee

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mussab al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s Shi’ite Alliance hopes to offer
Kurdish and Sunni blocs a new candidate for prime minister on
Friday to try to break a deadlock over the formation of a new
government before parliament meets.

The Alliance’s original choice for the job, Ibrahim
al-Jaafari, indicated in a televised speech on Thursday he was
ready to step aside at the request of the bloc after resisting
widespread calls for his resignation for months.

That raised hopes of a deal on a national unity government
Washington hopes can avert a full-scale sectarian civil war and
draw Arab Sunni insurgents into the political process.

The Alliance, which has the biggest bloc in parliament, had
said it would hold a new vote for its nominee but shelved those
plans fearing further delays and opposition again from other
political alliances if they are not consulted first.

“The Alliance wants to agree on a candidate without going
through another vote which could cause further delays,” a
senior member of the bloc told Reuters.

“Once that is accomplished we will try to reach a consensus
with all the other blocs. We don’t have much time so we are
rushing.”

There were no signs of a breakthrough by late afternoon but
the Shi’ite bloc’s small Fadhila party offered its leader,
Nadim al-Jabiri, as a candidate for prime minister.

The office of senior Alliance official Jawad al-Maliki said
talks were expected to last until late into the night.

NO CANDIDATE STANDS OUT

Parliament, which has sat only once since polls in
December, is due to convene on Saturday. Lawmakers are expected
to start choosing a speaker and a presidential council, which
must then put the nominee for prime minister for a vote in the
assembly.

Although a long-awaited deal on the prime minister is
likely to be hailed as a victory for democracy, no candidate
stands out as a strong, popular leader who can tackle Iraq’s
raging violence and rescue an economy starved of foreign
investment.

The logjam has left some Iraqis with no hope.

“The delay proved that the democratic experience failed in
Iraq. We see many politicians who are actually not fit for any
post,” said Adil Abdulamir, 40, a university professor in
Iraq’s second city of Basra in the mostly Shi’ite south.

“The core of the problem is not Jaafari himself. The real
issue is that all the alternate figures are lacking the
political experience to run the country.”

The United States is banking on a national unity government
to stabilize the country and enable it to start bringing home
its more than 130,000 troops.

Much also hinges on the performance of the U.S.-trained
Iraqi forces, who are meant to eventually take over security.

That is not expected anytime soon and sectarian mistrust is
so deep among Iraqis that the Shi’ite-dominated security forces
are seen as part of a bloody communal conflict, not a solution.

Sectarian violence has exploded since the February bombing
of a Shi’ite shrine touched off reprisals and
counter-reprisals.

Hundreds of bodies with bullet holes and torture marks have
turned up on streets and six more corpses were discovered on
Friday in several parts of Baghdad.

In northern Iraq, Iranian forces shelled Kurdish rebels on
Iraqi territory early on Friday to repel an attack, an Iraqi
Kurdish official said.

“This morning Iranian Kurdish fighters infiltrated the
border into the Iranian side and the Iranian army bombed the
area and repelled them. The shelling hit Iraqi land at
Sidakan,” said Saadi Pira, an official in the leading PUK
Kurdish party.

There was no immediate comment from Tehran and no word on
casualties in the shelling of the PJAK rebels.

(Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Ross Colvin)