Shi’ites scramble for new Iraq 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 United Iraqi 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 blocs if they are not consulted.

“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
officials in Jawad al-Maliki’s Dawa party and state television
said it appeared he would be offered as the Shi’ite coalition’s
new nominee for prime minister.

Maliki, who is close to Dawa leader Jaafari, was earlier
seen as an unlikely candidate because he is seen as a sectarian
politician who would have trouble gaining the trust of Sunni
and Kurdish political blocs.

Earlier, the Alliance’s small Fadhila party offered its
leader, Nadim al-Jabiri, as a candidate for prime minister.

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 any time 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.