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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Interim Iraqi Vice
President Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen as his
Shiite ticket's candidate for prime minister Tuesday
after Ahmad Chalabi dropped his bid, senior alliance
officials said.
Pressure from within the ranks of the United Iraqi
Alliance, which won Iraq's landmark Jan. 30
election, forced the withdrawal of Chalabi, a
one-time Pentagon favorite, said Hussein al-Moussawi
from the Shiite Political Council, an umbrella group
for 38 Shiite parties.
"They wanted him to withdraw. They didn't want to
push the vote to a secret ballot," al-Moussawi said.
The 140 members were to put the decision between
Chalabi and al-Jaafari to a secret ballot by
Tuesday's end.
The decision came after three days of
round-the-clock negotiations by senior members of
the clergy-backed alliance, which emerged from the
election with a 140-seat majority in the 275-member
parliament, or National Assembly.
The office of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq,
or SCIRI, confirmed that Chalabi had withdrawn his
bid to be prime minister.
"Chalabi announced his withdrawal and everyone
agreed on al-Jaafari. Then Chalabi declared his
support to al-Jaafari," said Haytham al Husaini, a
top al-Hakim aide.
SCIRI, the main group making up the alliance, tried
for days to persuade Chalabi to quit the race, some
of its senior officials said.
Al-Jaafari's only other likely opponent for the post
would be interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who was
nominated for the job by his group. The Iraqi List
got only 14 percent of the vote - or 40 seats - in
the election.
The United Iraqi Alliance took 48 percent of the
vote last month but needs to form a coalition with
smaller parties to form the new government. A
two-thirds majority of the National Assembly is
required for the most important decisions, including
selection of a prime minister.
The next step would be for the alliance to form a
coalition, and the Kurds are likely partners.
Kurdish parties, who won 26 percent, have indicated
in the past they would support the Shiite candidate
for prime minister in return for support for their
candidate for the largely ceremonial presidency.
A date for the parliament's opening has not been
set.
The conservative Al-Jaafari, a 58-year-old family
doctor, is the main spokesman for the Islamic Dawa
Party, which waged a bloody campaign against Saddam
Hussein's regime in the late 1970s. Saddam crushed
the campaign in 1982 and Dawa based itself in Iran.
In an interview with The Associated Press last week,
he said the most pressing issues for the nation were
improving security and improving the standards of
its social services.
The secular Chalabi is a former exile leader who
heavily promoted the idea that Saddam had weapons of
mass destruction. He later fell out with some key
members of the Bush administration over allegations
that he passed secrets to Iran.
AP
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