BAGHDAD: Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who is all but certain to be Iraq's next prime minister, is expected to use firm but understated diplomacy to navigate his country around sectarian minefields after last month's historic election.
The main Shia alliance, winner of the Jan 30 polls, on Tuesday unanimously approved Jaafari for the post, meaning the former exile and leader of the Islamist Dawa Party is virtually guaranteed to get the job.
Once in office, the softly spoken physician faces the daunting task of bringing minority Sunni Muslims once privileged under Saddam Hussein into the political fold after they boycotted the polls or did not vote out of fear of violence.
Saddam's henchmen killed thousands of Jaafari's fellow Shias in the underground Dawa party during the 1980s and 1990s. But the low-key politician does not believe Iraq's repressive past will plunge the country into civil war.
After more than two decades of opposing Saddam, both in Iraq and abroad, Jaafari has learned skilled diplomacy. He also knows that American troops should not leave too soon, with Iraq plagued by suicide bombings, kidnappings and crime.
Majority Shias gained unprecedented power by capturing 48 per cent of the votes in the election, while Sunnis were marginalized, raising fears some could join the insurgency.
Jaafari, 58, fled to Iran in the 1980s after Saddam's crackdown on Dawa that culminated in the execution of the party's founder, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr. Having returned to Iraq in 2003 to serve as a member of the US-appointed Governing Council that previously ran Iraq, he believes Iraqis want to avoid bloodletting.
SEASONED CAMPAIGNER: Born in the southern holy city of Karbala, he earned his medical degree from Mosul University before joining Dawa - the oldest Islamic movement in Iraq - in 1966.
As vice president in the current interim administration, Jaafari's role is ceremonial, but he is among the top names on a Shia list formed under the auspices of Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani, the country's most influential Shia cleric.
The list, called the United Iraqi Alliance, won 140 seats in the newly elected 275-seat National Assembly, putting it in the driving seat to run the next government.
Jaafari, a father of five whose family still lives in London, will need all his cool-headed negotiating skills to overcome Iraq's sensitive sectarian divides in a country with many factions, including within sects.
It is a challenge, like others, that Jaafari plays down, insisting that politics is not black and white and must be handled with patience. Sunnis have a part to play in the new Iraq like everyone else, he says.
"The background of those who are victimizing Shias might be Sunni, but there is wide understanding that they do not represent Sunni thinking," Jaafari said recently. "Neither Sunnis nor Shias are prepared to accept civil war," he said. "Iraqis have been through many tests but coexistence has held."
Some Iraqis view Jaafari and others like him as politicians who have no right to power because they spent years abroad escaping Saddam while others suffered under his regime. They resent as outsiders those who rode into Iraq on American tanks. But Jaafari said Iraqis were thankful the Americans had toppled Saddam. "Sometimes when I ride in an American helicopter people wave because they are thankful," he said. -Reuters