BAGHDAD - Iraq's
dominant Shi'ite alliance on Sunday chose
incumbent Ibrahim Jaafari as its candidate for
prime minister of the first full-term government
since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.
Jaafari won a United Iraqi Alliance (UIA)
vote nearly two months after the December 15
parliamentary elections, beating out Vice
President Adil Abd al-Mahdi by just one vote.
Jaafari's selection is expected to ensure
that followers of militant Shi'ite cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr, who is a strong critic of US policy
in
Iraq, will continue to remain a force. According
to reports, the cleric's followers convinced 10
independent legislators at the last moment to
switch their allegiance to Jaafari.
The
UIA, a 128-member Shi'ite-dominated bloc, is the
largest political group in the 275-seat
parliament. The legislature must still choose a
presidential council, which will then approve the
prime minister and his cabinet, which could take a
few weeks.
Also on Sunday, the
outgoing president, Jalal Talabani, said his Kurdistan
Coalition would not support the next government if
secularist former prime minister Iyad Allawi's
Iraqi National List was not brought into it.
Jaafari prevails Jaafari was
the strongest of all the four final candidates,
which included Mahdi from the Supreme Council of
the Iraqi Revolution (SCIR), Nadim al-Jabiri of
the al-Fadila al-Islamiyya Party and Hussein
Shahristani of an independent Shi'ite bloc.
Born in 1947, Jaafari became prime
minister after the elections of January 2005. He
had been one of the two vice presidents of
ex-president Ghazi al-Yawer in the interim
government of 2004. He is also leader of the Da'wa
Party, one of the main Islamic political parties
operating in Iraq with the help of Iranian funds
since the 1960s.
Jaafari was educated as a
medical doctor at the University of Mosul. He
joined the Da'wa Party in 1966 and was active in
party politics until the Ba'athist regime came to
power in 1968 and outlawed all political parties.
The Ba'ath was particularly harsh with the Da'wa
Party, accusing it of being on the Iranian payroll
and of wanting to topple the regime. Jaafari fled
to Iran after the Islamic revolution took place in
1979, where he was received with honors by
ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then went to London
in 1989, becoming spokesman for his party there.
He retains close ties with Iran.
During
his stay in Tehran, he helped Abdul Aziz al-Hakim
found SCIRI. Saddam responded by executing five
members of Jaafari's family still living in Iraq.
Jaafari worked part-time as a religious preacher,
especially during the month of Ramadan, where he
gave Islamic advice free of charge to the Iraqi
community in Britain. Jaafari returned to Iraq
after the downfall of Saddam and served as first
chairman of the Interim Governing Council.
Jaafari brought his Da'wa Party into the
UIA and became prime minister on April 7, 2005.
Opinion polls conducted in Iraq show that he is
one of the most popular leaders in Iraq, preceded
by Muqtada and Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who
happens to be Jaafari's brother-in-law. It was
Sistani's support in 2005 that secured the
premiership for Jaafari.
His party is held
in high regard in Iraq, mainly because of its long
history in opposing the Ba'athists, but also
because Sistani has graced it with his blessing.
Even today, Da'wa is regarded as decent and
uncorrupted.
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