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[Foreign Policy] Iraqiyya's Path to Power | Foreign Policy: On March25, a ruling by Iraq'sFederal Supreme Court increased this likelihood: The court determined thatthough Iraqiyya secured the largest number of seats, it might not get thefirst shot at forming a government. In response to a March 22 request byMaliki's office to clarify the Iraqi Constitution, the court ruled thatelection lists could merge after the elections -- and if a newly formed listthen constituted the largest alliance, it would gain the privilege ofattempting to form a government.

[Iraq and Gulf Analysis] Iraqiyya Challenges the Jurisdiction of the Federal Supreme Court ...: Barzani cooperated with Saddam, yes, or if you can even call it that (he called in Saddam’s support to fight the PUK, which was defeating him in civil war, as result he lost significant popularity and Americans had to save him because Saddam didn’t wanna leave), but that’s completely different from politically alligning itself with a party opposed to Kurdish federalism. Also Kurds are demanding Kirkuk from their leaders now and there is an opposition movement, if their leaders fail to deliver, they will loose elections.

[The Majlis] Ammar al-Hakim: Iraqiyya not a Ba'athist bloc - The Majlis: Less than 48 hours after the Palestinian leadership agreed to join indirect peace discussions with the Israeli government for the first time in more than a year, Israeli promises to continue construction in East Jerusalem neighborhoods may mean that such talks, already fragile and two months late, are dead on arrival.

[KurdNet News ekurd.net] Ayad Allawi's path to power, must play his cards right: Allawi will also likely need to consistently turn to Iraq's most revered Shiite religious figure, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, to improve his image in Iraq's largely Shiite south. Sistani is unlikely to endorse Iraqiyya or any other alliance, but any statement from his office that denies the existence of a veto on Allawi, or makes it clear his coalition's weight should be reflected fairly in the government, will provide a tremendous boost to Iraqiyya.

[openDemocracy] Fragile post-election Iraq suffers sectarian bomb attacks ...: Allawi defined the attempts to ban the party’s candidates as a political plot orchestrated by Iran to maintain its protégées in power, in support of which are cited the Iraqi National Alliance’s pressure on the Commission to proceed in the enquiries and its 17 parliamentarians who form part of the Iranian-backed Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq.

[The Gulf Research Unit's Blog] Does Saudi Arabia Really Want a United Iraq? « The Gulf Research ...: in contrast to an ideologically coherent and therefore strong minimal-winning coalition of Iraqiyya and SLA), it makes little sense to exclude the potentially most violent element from the mix (the Sadrists) while keeping as a partner a now very small party with more long-standing ties to Iran and with a history of allying with the Kurds against Baghdad (ISCI). The end result might well be the ultimate subversion of the will of the Iraqi electorate, with the marginalisation of Maliki, Allawi and the Sadrists -  all the top vote-getters from 7 March - and a government formed by compromise candidates from the remains of SLA and Iraqiyya and with the Kurds and ISCI in dominant roles.

[Iraq and Gulf Analysis] De-Baathification Has Served Its Purpose: 17 Governorate Results ...: Of course, if Allawi and Maliki agree, they need neither Kurds nor Hakim, but Hakim is clearly trying to push this towards a big power-sharing deal involving everyone – precisely on the pattern that Washington, Tehran and Riyadh all want (but which is useless for Iraq).

[Enduring America] Iraq: The Latest Political Moves | Enduring America: The horse-trading continues in Iraq: Prime minister Nouri al-Maliki is trying to cement a possible merger with the Iraqi National Alliance [predominantly "religious" Shi'a), but the Sadrist movement seems reluctant; and [former Prime Minister] Iyad Allawi is trying to attract Kurdish support, but the Kurds seem reluctant.

[Iraq and Gulf Analysis] Compensation Seats To Be Awarded According to the Procedures of ...: Most leaders which did run in the open list system did pretty well though, Maliki with 600 thousand votes, Allawawi with 400 thousand, Hashemi with 200 thousand, Jaafari did reasonably too with 100 thousand (but his list was much more fragmented, in SLA Maliki takes all the votes), Nawshirwan Mustafa was by far the highest Kurd with 90 thousand and Ali Bapir with 50 thousand votes beat all the KDP’s candidates in their stronghold Arbil, al-Nujayfi took 275 thousand and al-Issawi 80 thousand, al-Samaraei got only 9 thousand but since his list did poorly that isn’t that bad, he atleast came first place, the Iraqi Islamic Party’s leader Usama al-Tikriti came second to some other guy in his list though, but most elected Tawafuq members had around ~10,000 votes. The only real embarresment I see is Adil Abd al-Mahdi being outvoted by Bahaa al-Aaraji, Ahmad Challabi wasn’t gonna do well anyway, remember how list list did in 2005, atleast this time he got elected…

[Gorilla's Guides] 19-04-2010 Selected English Language Coverage | Gorilla's Guides: This would in many ways mean a return to the situation in 2007, after the defection of the Sadrists (November 2006, after the Maliki-Bush meeting) but before that of Tawafuq and Iraqiyya in the summer), though with Maliki in a relatively stronger position vis-à-vis the decentralisers among the Kurds and ISCI. It has also been suggested that the United States and Saudi Arabia would be happy with this kind of outcome, even though the ideological contradictions would still be much bigger than in a smaller, centralist Iraqiyya/SLA government, and to call it a “political majority” would be something of a euphemism.

[Iraq and Gulf Analysis] Why Ad Hoc De-Baathification Will Derail the Process of ...: The old de-Baathification committee, created on the basis of ideas from Paul Bremer and headed since 2004 by Ali Faysal al-Lami - a Shiite political operator with particularly close ties to Iran - is supposed to be replaced by a new “justice and accountability board” pursuant to the “justice and accountability act” passed in early 2008. However, Iraqi parliamentarians have been wrangling about who should sit on the new board, with a government proposal for a Maliki ally (Walid al-Hilli) to take over its leadership so far having been rejected in parliament, partly due to internal Shiite opposition.

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