Fragile hopes for al-Maliki’s third term. Will Nouri al-Maliki become the Prime Minister again?

by **Ponee** Thu May 08, 2014 8:26 pm

05/08/2014

Fragile hopes for al-Maliki’s third term. Will Nouri al-Maliki become the Prime Minister again? 7384358

Analysts expect that the political climate since the recent parliamentary election in Iraq will preclude Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki from running for a third term in office. Kurd and Sunni parties are against his third term, and Iran is unlikely to show him their support for fear of provoking the anger of the Shiite community, whose clerics and leaders also oppose him.Al-Maliki has no legal obstacles in running for a third term, only political obstacles. Iran has always been accused for intervening in the internal affairs of Iraq, but al-Maliki’s current unpopularity in political circles will make him a difficult man to support. According to a local Iraqi news website, al-Maliki, Ibrahim al-Ja’fari and Khuzair al-Khuzayi have secretly visited Tehran to gage whether Iranian officials will support al-Maliki’s third term.

Before their visit, they met with the highest Shiite Marja clerics in Najaf, Iraq, where it was decided to choose a Shiite for the Prime Minister’s office, and that the candidate should not be nominated by the State of Law Coalition (led by al-Maliki), Citizen Coalition (Ammar al-Hakim) or the al-Ahrar Coalition (Muqtada al-Sadr).

According to information obtained by BasNews, al-Maliki has sent officials to Washington DC to renew his alliance with the US by assuring them that his party will solve its disputes with Kurds and Sunnis peacefully.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has changed its stance on the matter by retracting its support for al-Maliki’s third term.

PUK MP in Baghdad Hassan Jihad told BasNews that none of the big parties in Iraq support al-Maliki’s third term, and therefore it will be difficult for him to continue in his post. He further said that al-Maliki might delay the process of forming the new government to complicate political affairs and turn things to his advantage.

“It is true that he [al-Maliki] has won most of the votes and this is the biggest problem for Iraq, but unlike before, Iraq’s current situation and that of the Kurdistan Region, both engineered by the Prime Minister, will preclude him from running for a third term,” said Jihad.

Kurdistan Alliance MP Moayad Tayib verified to BasNews that the PM post has been reserved for a Shiite, but he noted that there are many Shiite political parties and that al-Maliki’s list is only one of them.

“All the Shiite political parties are saying that the post will be for them. Al-Maliki can’t claim to have the post just because he has gained most of the votes. He knows very well that in the previous election, Ayad Allawi gained most of the votes but an agreement was made and the post was given to al-Maliki,” said Tayib.

He believes that al-Maliki has no legal obstacles to run for the third term, but if the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political parties retain their stance against him, he will not be able to form the majority government, and the parties that allied themselves with him will regret their decision.

Tayib also stated that Iran has a huge impact on the political decisions in Iraq, indirectly if not officially.

“Of course,” said Tayib, “since the post has been reserved for a Shiite, the Iranians will share in the decision of who will be the next Prime Minister of Iraq. Hakim and al-Sadr are both Shiites and allied to Iran, but it is unclear which man Iran will choose to support.”

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