By Edward Wong
The New York Times, 09 December 2005
NAJAF, Iraq - As the debate got under way in a hotel assembly hall here recently, the governor of this Shiite holy city tried to stay on message when asked about his party's position on the hottest of the country's hot-button issues - the American troop presence.
"If the Americans feel they're ready to withdraw from Iraq, they will withdraw," the governor, Assad Abu Galal al-Taiee, a party official in the main Shiite coalition in the coming parliamentary elections, said to rival politicians and reporters.
But just hours earlier, in a hotel across town, another prominent member of the coalition, Moktada al-Sadr, swept into a news conference in his flowing black robes to deliver an altogether different pronouncement.
His aides handed out fliers demanding "the pullout of the occupier and the setting of a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq."
Mr. Sadr, a young cleric who has led two rebellions against the Americans, vowed that "the occupier won't grab our Iraq and its resources as long as we are alive."
Those clashing stump speeches highlight the growing fissures in the once virtually monolithic religious Shiite establishment, as its leaders battle one another for position on the eve of the Dec. 15 elections for a full four-year government.
The United Iraqi Alliance, a coalition of 18 conservative Shiite parties - the largest of which are backed by Iran - remains the centerpiece of Shiite politics and is expected to garner more votes on Dec. 15 than any other single coalition or party. It has long been vulnerable to infighting, but its members have managed to pull together at critical moments, as when they nominated Ibrahim al-Jaafari as prime minister last February.
This time, though, the rivalries have grown more heated and the potential for an irreparable split is greater, Iraqi and Western officials say. Many coalition members have broken away and started their own parties, and there has been a palpable drop in support among moderate voters and the leading ayatollahs, who are disenchanted with the performance of the current Shiite government.
A fracturing of the conservative coalition could set the conditions for a realignment of Iraq's political spectrum, creating an opening for a more secular Shiite candidate like the former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, or even Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon favorite, to assemble enough allies to claim the top spot in the new government.
The Bush administration, under intense political pressure at home to stabilize Iraq quickly and begin drawing down the 160,000 American troops, would be delighted to see a secular candidate take control, and is watching closely to see whether the religious Shiites will maintain a grip on power, and what kind of influence Iran will wield over the new government.
This should be a triumphal moment for the Shiites, who make up about 60 percent of Iraq's population but have been denied sovereign rule since colonial powers pieced together the country from remnants of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.
No one has been more instrumental in pushing for popular elections than Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq, who lives on an alleyway near the golden-domed Shrine of Ali here. Two years ago, the reclusive ayatollah cajoled the White House into setting up elections, and Dec. 15 was expected to be the day that his behind-the-scenes engineering finally paid off.
Yet, sniping among the Shiite politicians has intensified as the date draws near.
"There has been disappointment over the performance of the United Iraqi Alliance in the past period," said Ali Dabagh, a businessman from Karbala, another holy city nearby. "There has been no vision and no policies because they're not employing technically qualified people."
Mr. Dabagh himself was part of the Shiite coalition in last January's elections for an interim government. But he has now formed his own party and taken six other coalition members with him. One of his platform planks is to place technocrats in critical government positions rather than make political appointments, which he accuses the Shiite coalition of having done.
The coalition's support is greatest here in dusty Najaf, the spiritual heart of Shiite Islam, where brown-robed clerics from the Hawza, the venerable Shiite seminary, stride through the streets with Korans in hand. White campaign banners flutter along virtually every block of the major avenues, some with the coalition's symbol, a lit candle, or its ballot number, 555.
"I'll choose 555 because it gathers together qualified and religious people," said Mahmoud Hadi, 35, an accountant clutching a briefcase at a bus stop. "We want security for all Iraqis, but especially for the Shiites because they are targeted."
There is a telling lack of support from the top four ayatollahs, known as the marjaiyah. Only one of them, Ayatollah Bashir al-Najafi, has openly endorsed the coalition. Last January, Ayatollah Sistani threw his weight behind the alliance, allowing his image to be used on its campaign posters. This time, perhaps disappointed by the government's performance, he has offered only an implicit endorsement.
In the eyes of moderates, the image of the coalition has been tarred by growing evidence that government security forces made up of Shiite militia members have abducted, tortured and killed Sunni Arab civilians.
It is not clear what electoral clout the moderates wield, but in a recent campaign speech in Baghdad, Prime Minister Jaafari felt compelled to address their concerns, saying, "We can't compare the violations that took place recently with the ones that occurred under Saddam, and with the crimes and the millions of victims of that regime."
The shortcomings of the current rulers may lead some Shiites, especially the less religious ones, to stay home on election day, or to cast their votes for Mr. Allawi or for politicians who have split off from the Shiite coalition.
Another major threat to the coalition may come from within. Three parties - the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Dawa and the Sadr Organization - form its nucleus. A deep enmity exists between the Supreme Council and the Sadr Organization, dating to a rivalry between the father of the Supreme Council's leader, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, and Mr. Sadr's father.
Given all the schisms, even if the coalition were to get 100 to 120 seats in the Parliament, as expected, it could fracture during the political jockeying that will take place in the formation of the new government.
If the religious Shiites stay together, they will wield veto power over any proposed government, since a two-thirds vote of the 275 members of Parliament is needed for the executives to be installed.
But if entire blocs of the coalition defect, then it will be easier for politicians such as Mr. Allawi or Mr. Chalabi to cobble together a patchwork of allies among the various Shiite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish parties.
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting for this article.
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Citation: By Edward Wong. "Iraq's Powerful Shiite Coalition Shows Signs of Stress as Parliamentary Elections Loom," The New York Times, 09 December 2005.
Original URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/international/middleeast/09shiites.html
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