Amir hails Iraq poll
Iran allies round on surprise winner
KUWAIT CITY, May 16, (Agencies): His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sent cables to Iraqi President Fuad Masum and Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi on Tuesday to congratulate them on parliamentary elections’ success.
His Highness the Amir said the democratic practice and high spirits of the Iraqi people would contribute to honoring aspirations of the Iraqi people, in addition to push forward development, prosperity and advancement.
His Highness the Crown Prince Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah congratulated Masum and Al-Abadi on the success of the parliamentary elections.
His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Jaber Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah sent similar cables.
Meanwhile, Iran and its allies were mustering a bid Wednesday to limit the role of fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr in Iraq’s next government after his shock election
win reshaped the country’s political landscape.
The preacher, who was the bete noire of American forces during the US invasion, captured the most seats in parliament after his improbable alliance with Iraq’s communists tapped popular anger over corruption and foreign interference.
But analysts said the reality of Iraq’s complex political system and the sway still held by neighbouring Iran mean he faces a fight to oversee the running of a country still reeling from a brutal conflict against the Islamic State group.
Fanar Haddad, an Iraq analyst at the University of Singapore, said it was
“mathematically, legally and constitutionally” possible for Sadr’s rivals to form a coalition government without members of his victorious Marching Towards Reform alliance.
Preliminary tallies from last weekend’s vote put the Conquest Alliance of pro-Iranian former paramilitary fighters who helped battle IS in second place, followed by incumbent Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi’s bloc.
Abadi – a consensus figure favoured by the US – had been seen as likely frontrunner after declaring victory over the jihadists five months ago.
The vote – which saw record high abstentions – was a slap in the face to the widely reviled elite that has dominated Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Since Monday, the powerful Iranian general Qassem Soleimani has met with several members of Iraq’s old
guard including Abadi and his predecessor Nuri al-Maliki, several officials told AFP.
According to the officials, Soleimani ruled out any alliance with Sadr, who surprised many last year by visiting Iran’s regional foe Saudi Arabia as Riyadh seeks increased involvement in Iraq.
Sadr rose to prominence in the wake of the US invasion, when his militia fought a bloody insurgency against American troops.
After years on the sidelines, he has reinvented himself as a champion of the poor and linked up with secularists to battle corruption.
He is one of the few Iraqi politicians opposed to both the presence of American troops and the heavy influence that neighbouring Iran exercises over Iraq.
Soleimani’s shuttle diplomacy is aimed at gathering enough parties opposed to Sadr to deny his alliance a governable majority and a route to the powerful position of prime minister – though Sadr himself is not in the running for the top job.
As well as Abadi and Maliki, the Iranian general met with the pro-Tehran head of the Conquest Alliance Hadi al-Ameri.
A spokesman for Maliki told AFP that the former premier is looking to form a parliamentary bloc with “several major players, including the Conquest Alliance, Sunni and Shiite parties, and the Kurds.”
Sadr has already ruled out governing with either Ameri or Maliki and called instead for a technocratic government that can begin to tackle Iraq’s rampant corruption and the mammoth rebuilding task left from the battle against IS.
“Iran wants to exert pressure so that these two forces (Ameri and Maliki) are at the negotiating table,” said analyst Haddad.
While speculation swirls, the next concrete step remains completing the vote count and firming up the final make-up of Iraq’s new 329-seat parliament. Official election results are expected in the coming days.
Besieging
Gunmen in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk were on Wednesday besieging several polling stations containing election staff, four days after a national vote, the head of the electoral commission said.
Riyadh al-Badran said the gunmen, who he did not identify, were putting pressure on the commission to change the election results in the multi-ethnic region.
“The employees of the commission are in a hostage situation,” he said, calling on authorities to provide protection.
The final nationwide results should be announced in the next two days, Badran said.
The initial results in Kirkuk were disputed by the Turkmen and Arab communities of the region which is also inhabited by a large Kurdish population.
The election commission said on Tuesday that initial results from Kirkuk indicated a win for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), a historic Iraqi Kurdish party.
In October, Iraqi forces backed by Shi’ite militias dislodged Kurdish Peshmerga fighters who had taken control of Kirkuk city in 2014, preventing its capture by Islamic State militants who had overrun Iraqi army positions in northern and western Iraq.
The return of the Iraqi army to Kirkuk was greeted with relief by the Arab and Turkmen populations there.
Saturday’s elections were the first in Iraq since the defeat of Islamic State last year by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition.
Initial nationwide results showed a surprise victory for the bloc that supports populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shi’ite not aligned with Iran who campaigned on a nationalist platform, tapping into public resentment against widespread corruption and huge social disparities.
A tally by Reuters of provincial results announced over the past three days shows Sadr’s list leading, followed by Amiri, a close ally of Iran, and then outgoing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.
Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani was holding talks with politicians in Baghdad to promote the formation of a new cabinet which would have Iran’s approval, two people familiar with the political process underway said.