State of Law – Iraqi National Alliance Coalition Appears To Be Coming To An End

On May 4, 2010 Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s State of Law and the Sadrist-Supreme Council led Iraqi National Alliance announced that they had merged together. The coalition was an attempt by Iraq’s leading Shiite parties to maintain their control of the government after Iyadl Allawi and his nationalist-secular Iraqi National Movement won the most seats in the March 2010 parliamentary election. The alliance ran into immediate problems as the Sadrists and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) both opposed Maliki’s return to power. As alternatives, the Sadrists nominated Ibrahim al-Jaafari, while the SIIC backed Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. By June the Prime Minister became so frustrated that he opened talks with Allawi’s list. In early July the National Alliance sent a formal letter to State of Law saying that unless they named someone other than Maliki to be premier the merger between the two would be off. While there was a State of Law meeting on July 11 where they decided they had to come up with an alternative, it was unclear when and if that would happen, and whether Maliki would accept being pushed aside. Until that happens it looks like the super-Shiite list is done. Unfortunately that doesn’t mean that Iraq’s parties are any closer to forming a government.

SOURCES

AK News, “INA: “The problems about Prime minister’s post between Shiite coalitions are not new.” 7/13/10

MEMRI Staff, “Another Week of Political Drifting in Iraq,” MEMRI Blog, 7/12/10

Roads To Iraq, “Allawi, Maliki and the political message of the meeting,” 6/13/10