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WASHINGTON - The race for Iraqi prime minister
has narrowed to two candidates who are now vying for
the precious endorsement of the largest voting bloc
in the new transitional national assembly.
A spokesman in Baghdad for the United Iraqi Alliance
announced yesterday that the current finance
minister, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was withdrawing his name
from consideration for the top post in the new
government. That leaves the head of one faction of
the Dawa party, Ibrahim Jafari, and the leader of
the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmad Chalabi, as the
remaining candidates in the race for prime minister.
In a telephone interview from Baghdad yesterday, Mr.
Chalabi said he had the support of 73 of the 140
legislators in the UIA. "I believe the right choice
will be made by the coalition. I've been meeting
with members of the new assembly and political
leaders to discuss the future developments of this
process," he said.
Mr. Jafari, who in June was appointed as one of
Iraq's two vice presidents, is said to have garnered
the support of the rival to his Dawa party, the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.
The sixth-ranking member of SCIRI, Humam Hamoudi,
who is a spokesman for the UIA, yesterday told the
Associate Press that Mr. Jafari had emerged as the
front-runner.
Members of the UIA are scheduled to meet today and
tomorrow in Baghdad in an attempt to reach a
consensus on the candidate they will endorse for
prime minister. While the UIA candidate for prime
minister is not guaranteed the position, it is
likely that the endorsement will be enough because
the slate controls a little more than 50% of the
275-member assembly. Under the transitional
administrative law, the new assembly must elect a
president and two vice presidents. This
"presidential council" will then be asked to choose
by consensus the new prime minister. If the
three-person council cannot agree on a candidate, a
vote is to be taken again in the assembly, where the
new prime minister must gain a two-thirds majority.
The dealing and maneuvering in the run-up to the UIA
meetings recall the politics that nearly split apart
the alliance in December, when the final list of
candidates for the UIA was forged. In those
negotiations the biggest issues were the presence of
independent candidates on the list, as opposed to
members of the major parties, and whether the UIA
would take a position on the role of Islam in the
new Iraq. In the end Mr. Chalabi secured seats for
many of the independent candidates who are now
supporting him.
Mr. Jafari, a Western-educated doctor, has recently
cast himself in a more secular light. In an
interview yesterday with the Associated Press, he
stressed that he believed Islam should be one of the
"main sources of legislation," a distinct reversal
from his blustery protests of the transitional
administrative law, when he said his religion should
be the only source of Iraqi law. He also said that
his top priority would be fighting the insurgency in
Iraq, and signaled that he would not be asking
American soldiers to leave the country.
While Mr. Jafari is looking like the favorite of the
two largest Shiite parties, the Kurdish slate of
candidates, which will control 26% of the seats in
the new assembly, may still veto the candidacy of
the candidate whose party's name means "Islamic
Call." The president of the Washington Kurdish
Institute, Najmaldin Karim, who has been in regular
contact with the two Kurdish leaders in northern
Iraq in recent days, told the Sun that Mr. Jafari
would need to meet certain conditions if he was to
gain the endorsement of the Kurds.
"I think the Kurdish position on the next prime
minister will be critical," he said. He said that
the Kurdish slate expected to control the presidency
of the three-person council that will choose the
prime minister. So far, the top candidate for
president of Iraq is the leader of the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, Jalal Talabani.
Mr. Karim added, "The next prime minister has to
meet certain criteria. That is accepting federalism.
The next prime minister has to clearly agree that
article 58 will be implemented, which is the process
of reversing the Arabization and ethnic cleansing in
areas such as Kirkuk. And the prime minister will
have to accept separation of religion from state. If
Jafari meets those criteria, he will be acceptable.
If he does not come out and say these things, we
will veto him. Chalabi in the past has said he
accepts these positions and agrees with them."
In his interview with the Associated Press, Mr.
Jafari said he accepted the idea of federalism, but
he stressed, "'Federalism doesn't mean separation
from the nation state."
Last year, Kurdish civil society organizations
presented the United Nations with a petition calling
for an independent Kurdistan.
A former adviser to the coalition provisional
authority, Michael Rubin, told the Sun, "If anyone
is an Iranian spy or agent of influence for Iran, it
is Jafari. Jafari talks the talk of democracy, but
in his heart he believes that Ayatollah Khomeini was
too liberal. Jafari has had trouble keeping his own
party together, he might not be the ideal candidate
to form the alliance necessary to keep Iraq
together." Mr. Rubin is now a scholar at the
American Enterprise Institute.
Mr. Chalabi has also in the past been accused of
having too close a relationship with Iran's
hard-liners, most recently last spring when
government officials anonymously leaked charges that
he passed signal intelligence to Iran's
revolutionary guard. At the time, Mr. Chalabi asked
to appear before Congress to clear his name. In
December, Mr. Chalabi gave a press conference in
Tehran during which he said the Iraqi government
would not emulate the Iranian style political system
that gave clerics unaccountable political authority.
He has also said in that press conference that Iran
should not interfere in Iraqi politics.
Written off last spring by the White House, Mr.
Chalabi in recent weeks has met with senior
officials from the American embassy in Baghdad. A
source close to the White House told the Sun
yesterday the president in the last week "issued a
clear directive that we are not to interfere with
the Iraqis as they make their own decisions in
forming the government." A senior administration
official confirmed this account to the Sun. "This
process is driven by Iraqis and dictated by Iraqis,
the resulting outcome will be an Iraqi outcome," the
official said. "If Chalabi gets it, Chalabi it will
be."
http://www.nysun.com
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