Maliki job at risk after snub by fellow Shiites

Published on Monday 24 August 2009 22:16

IRAQ'S Shiite political groups unveiled a new alliance yesterday but excluded prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, in a rare display of disunity among the country's majority Islamic sect.

The move puts pressure on Mr Maliki to strike a deal with Sunni parties if he hopes to keep his job after January's elections. It also marks a major realignment in Iraqi politics, breaking up a Shiite coalition that has dominated the government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The new bloc, called the Iraqi National Alliance, will include the largest Shiite party, the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), and anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's bloc, which both have close ties to Tehran, as well as some small Sunni and secular parties. If it does well in the January vote, Tehran could gain deeper influence in Iraq.

The new bloc is likely to worry Sunnis who largely consider the SIIC to be little more than an instrument of Iranian policy – exacerbating sectarian divisions at a time when violence that had waned is again on the rise.

Having been left outside the alliance, Mr Maliki appears to be trying to cast himself as a Shiite leader who can draw in minority Sunnis and Kurds. His aides have said the prime minister is working to form a broad-based, national coalition in a bid to end sectarian politics.

The Shiite MP Reda Jawad Taqi said Mr Maliki's Dawa party did not join the alliance because its leaders would not guarantee that he would remain prime minister if the bloc dominated the election.