CIAO DATE: 06/2010
May 2010
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Two months after nationwide elections, Iraq's government formation process is still on hold. The final voting results have yet to be announced as disputes over recounts and candidate disqualifications linger. Nor is it clear how a governing majority will be formed, and power shared, among the four major party alliances, each of which garnered somewhere between 16 percent and 28 percent of the vote: the Kurdish bloc and its affiliates; the largely Sunni or secular Iraqiyah party led by a former prime minister of Shiite origin, Ayad Allawi; incumbent prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's largely Shiite State of Law Alliance (SLA); and SLA's rival Shiite/Sadrist list, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), a coalition that includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. As a result of this impasse, Iran appears to have become an important political matchmaker, with delegations from all four alliances visiting Tehran in recent weeks. It is often assumed that many in Iraq's Shiite community accept or even welcome Iranian political influence given their shared sectarian affiliation with the Islamic Republic. The results of a new poll, however, show that even Iraqi Shiites are mostly opposed to such intervention.
Resource link: Iran Gets Negative Reviews in Iraq, Even from Shiites [PDF] - 14K