U.S. Hopes for Allawi Are Dwindling
Failure to Forge Coalition
May Reduce Election Odds
For Interim Iraqi Leader
By YOCHI J. DREAZEN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 22, 2004; Page A13
KARBALA, Iraq -- Iraq's electoral commission said the country will go to the polls Jan. 30 to choose its next government, fueling political maneuvering that is damping U.S. hopes of seeing interim Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi retain power.
With national elections just 10 weeks away, U.S. and Iraqi officials say that efforts to craft a unified slate of candidates from all of the parties represented on the now-dissolved Governing Council, the advisory body set up after the U.S.-led invasion last year, have fallen apart. This means Iraqis will have their choice of several competing political groupings defined by their sectarian composition and attitude toward the U.S.-led coalition occupying the country.
Regardless of who takes power, Iraq's next government will find itself facing a less-crushing debt burden, after the world's largest economic powers agreed yesterday to write off as much as 80% of the $42 billion that Iraq owes them, the Paris Club of 19 creditor nations said. Iraq owes an additional $80 billion to various Arab governments.
Washington hasn't taken a public position on the coming Iraqi elections, but officials in Baghdad have long said privately that they supported the idea of a unified slate of candidates from the Shiite, Sunni, Kurdish and nonsectarian parties that were represented on the council.
The officials said a unified ticket would help manage Iraq's unsteady transition to full democracy by including all of the parties with experience wielding political power and providing the only real chance of a broad coalition of all of the country's often-feuding sectarian groups.
Officials also hoped that such a ticket would make it easier for Mr. Allawi, a tough-minded Shiite politician with close ties to the Bush administration, to remain in his current post after the elections. The administration holds Mr. Allawi in high regard because he openly supported the recent U.S.-led invasions of Najaf and Fallujah, which had essentially been taken over by insurgents. The U.S. now controls both cities, although the assault on Fallujah caused significant American and Iraqi casualties and triggered widespread public anger at Mr. Allawi.
With a unified slate now unlikely, several coalitions of Iraqi parties and individual politicians are holding fevered talks designed to hammer together tickets before the elections. On Jan. 30, voters are set to choose a Kurdish national assembly, 18 provincial governing councils and a 275-person national assembly that will be charged with selecting an executive body -- including the country's next prime minister -- and crafting a new constitution.
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, Iraq's most revered Shiite leader, has ordered his senior aides to coordinate a political strategy for ensuring that Shiites win a majority in the next government. Shiites account for nearly 60% of Iraq's population but held little power during the long reign of ousted leader Saddam Hussein, a Sunni.
Mr. Sistani is unlikely to publicly endorse a list of candidates, but his aides are working to finalize a ticket comprising all of the country's largest Shiite parties: Dawa, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Iraqi National Congress led by onetime Pentagon favorite Ahmad Chalabi. Mr. Sistani's aides are also hoping to enlist radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose followers waged a pair of bloody uprisings against the U.S. and the interim Iraqi government before agreeing to a cease-fire earlier this fall.
Complicating matters, Mr. Chalabi and Mr. Sadr have held talks about creating an alternative Shiite bloc with a vocal anti-American platform. Mr. Chalabi has strong ties to many Sunni parties, and might be able to add smaller Sunni groups to the ticket as well.
The emerging Shiite slates are certain to present formidable challenges for Mr. Allawi, who is hoping to run on a separate ticket comprising his Iraqi National Accord party, the two largest Kurdish parties and a handful of independent Shiite and Sunni politicians. |
