Who will be the next prime minister?

Consultations are ongoing on who the next Iraqi prime minister will be, with eight potential names on the list:

Haidar Al Abadi

The incumbent prime minister still has a chance of remaining in office, but only after creating a more inclusive national unity cabinet. In late May, he met with Al Sadr and they agreed to work together, out of sheer practicality, since neither is too fond of the other.

A member of the Shiite Dawa party, Al Abadi hails from a prominent family of doctors in Baghdad, which was forced into exile shortly after Saddam came to power in 1978. Al Abadi has earned a reputation for being the least corrupt Iraqi politician.

Ali Dawai Lazem

A 53-year old Shiite ex-prisoner under Saddam Hussain who holds a BA in Islamic Studies from Baghdad University, he has been governor of the Maysan province in southern Iraq since 2009.

A ranking member of the Sadrist Movement, he was nominated for the premiership in 2014 and has since earned an army of admirers and fans, sweeping the streets of Maysan, having iftar with the poor, overseeing charity networks for the needy, and earning a nationwide reputation for his exceptionally unblemished financial record. Like Al Sadr, he has been recently critical of Iran’s growing influence in Iraqi domestic issues.

Hadi Al Amiri

Currently considered Iran’s top man in Iraq, Al

Amiri, 63, is someone who cannot be ignored in any cabinet formation, given the large parliamentary bloc that he represents.

He is the present commander of the Badr Organisation, the militia set up by Iran to fight

Saddam Hussain back in the 1980s.

For three solid decades, he has been on the Iranian payroll, fighting alongside the Iranian Army during the Iran-Iraq War.

He is very close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards and a close friend of powerful Iranian general Qassem Sulaimani.

Tarek Najm

The 72-year-old secretary of Dawa Party, he had served as chief-of-staff under Nouri Al Maliki and was a candidate for the premiership back in 2014.

Like Al Abadi, he refused to travel to Iran when hunted by Saddam’s regime, travelling first to Saudi Arabia, where he taught at King Abdul Aziz University, and then to the UAE, where he stayed until 1991.

Considered “acceptable” to all sides, he has warm relations with Iran but is also close to other Arab states and is on good terms with Al Sadr and liked by ordinary Shiites, with a career in Dawa dating back to the 1960s.

Nouri Al Maliki

Once a patron of Al Sadr, Al Maliki offered him protection from the security services, lobbying on his behalf with the Americans when he was first appointed prime minister in 2006.

The agreement between them was based on mutual political need.

In exchange for Al Maliki’s protection, Al Sadr gave him legitimacy and credibility on the streets of Baghdad, where Al Maliki was then unknown, emerging from years of exile in Syria to assume the country’s top job. The relationship soon snapped, when Al Maliki tried curbing Al Sadr’s powers after his Mehdi Army was becoming way too strong and independent for his taste.

Saleh Al Hasnawi

At 58, he is relatively unknown in political circles, having first entered parliament as an independent in 2010 and reelected in 2014.

A Shiite with no clerical background or ties to Iran, he is much respected in the holy city of Karbala where he served as director of health services before becoming minister of health in 2007.

Al Hasnawi is credited with rooting sectarianism out of the ministry. He was nominated to head Unesco and is highly respected in medical circles throughout the Arab world.

Adel Abdul Mehdi

A maverick Shiite politician and ranking economist, Abdul Mehdi served as vice-president of Iraq between 2005-2011 and minister of finance in 2014-2016. Hailing from a prominent family, his father was a minister under the Iraqi monarchy who sent him to Baghdad College, an elite American Jesuit secondary school.

He later studied in France, where he joined the Communist Party and worked at Paris-based think tanks and Arabic magazines. He remains a heavyweight who is close to Iran and on good terms with all Shiites within Iraq.

Ja’afar Al Sadr

A controversial newcomer, he is the brother-in-law and cousin of Moqtada Al Sadr, who also happens to be the son of revered Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Baker Al Sadr, the ideological founder of the Dawa party. Although he himself is not a member of his father’s party, Ja’afar grew up in a home regularly frequented by Shiite figures of all stripes and colours. He spent a lifetime studying Shiite theology in Qom, Iran, where he still travels frequently and owns a house, but took off his

Islamic garb in 2005, marketing himself as a moderate Shiite cleric.