Bargaining to decide top posts in new Iraqi govt: US official
BAGHDAD, Jan 27: No party or coalition is likely to emerge as a crushing victor in Iraq's election and intense bargaining will decide the top positions in the next government, a US official said on Thursday.
A Shia-led coalition formed under the guidance of Ayatollah Ali al Sistani is widely expected to win the most votes, but that won't necessarily translate into domination of the government, which will include Sunnis.
"Nobody is going to be able to decide everything for themselves ... there's going to be a lot of horse-trading to be done," said the US official, who has frequent contact with all parties in Iraq.
"Nobody is going to win a two-thirds majority in the national assembly," he said while talking to reporters at a briefing. Sunday's vote will elect a 275-seat assembly that must appoint a presidential council consisting of a president and two vice-presidents, approving the names by a two-thirds majority. The presidential council will then agree on a prime minister.
The ethnic and religious make-up of the council is expected to replicate the current structure of the interim government, with a Sunni as president and the vice-presidents being a Kurd and a Shia, although that format is not a certainty.
The prime minister will more than likely come from the Shia community. He or she is also widely expected to be secular, like current interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
The coalition formed under Ayatollah Sistani's auspices, the United Iraqi Alliance, has Abdel Aziz al Hakim as its number one candidate and includes several other powerful Shia figures who are not regarded as secular.
SUNNIS TO BE INVOLVED: While the Shia coalition is expected to win, the US official declined to predict how many seats it might secure. Recent estimates have varied widely from 70 to 160 seats, or 25 to nearly 60 per cent of the assembly.
A leading candidate on the list, Salama al Khafaji, said on Thursday she expected it to win at most 80 seats, or 30 per cent. That level of support would scotch previous talk of the alliance running away with the election and murmurings among opponents that it intends to set up a Shia theocracy in Iraq.
The US official said the exaggerated forecasts for the alliance were probably a response to a fatwa from Ayatollah Sistani commanding observant Shias to vote in the election, a move seen as favouring the coalition. But not all Shias are likely to follow the fatwa.
To exploit whatever clout it gains in the assembly, the United Iraqi Alliance will have to strike deals, not only with secular Shias, such as Mr Allawi's Iraqi List, which is expected to do well, but also with Kurds and Sunnis.
Because of a boycott by some parties and the bloodshed affecting Sunni areas, Sunni participation will be much lower than US officials had hoped, but it will not be absent.
And because the process of forming the presidential council and deciding the prime minister requires consensus, and none of those posts has to go to assembly members, there is no reason why Sunnis should not be represented in the next government. -Reuters
