Iraq's political parties discuss candidates

BAGHDAD - With the votes counted, Iraq's political parties are discussing who might fill the newly elected 275-member Iraqi National Assembly's most powerful positions.

There is broad agreement that the next Iraqi president will be a Kurd, the prime minister Shia and the National assembly speaker a Sunni.

The two major Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party, have already agreed on Jalal Talabani, the leader of PUK, as their candidate for president. They have also said they would support Hoyashir Zebari, the current foreign minister, to keep his position.

The biggest debate at the moment appears to be taking place among the religious Shiite parties who ran as a coalition in the election but have competing nominations for the position.

The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq is pushing its number-two man and current finance minister, Adel Abudl Medhi and the Dawa Party supports its leader, Ibrahim Jaafari. Both sat on the 25-member US-appointed governing council that disbanded last June.

"The other winners like the Kurds and the Iraqi list all have agreed for him," said Jenan Al-Obeidy, one of the SCIRI candidates who will have a seat in the assembly.

Members of the Dawa Party say the same about Jaafari. Adnan Ali, a spokesman for Jaafari, said an announcement isn't expected until early next week. Some think the Shiite bloc may not nominate a single candidate.

"Their list has 28 parties - just wait for the coming days, the Shiite parties will begin to talk to others," said Faraj Haidari, a spokesman for the KDP.

Ahmed Chalabi, the man who supplied the US government with false information about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities and fell further out of favour after he was accused of spying for Iran while a member of the governing council, has claimed he is candidate for prime minister as well.

Since then, Chalabi has cast himself as a populist and joined up with the Shiite list to complete what even his detractors admit has been an impressive comeback.

"I think Chalabi should just be grateful that we let him join the list," Mr Ali said.

Asked yesterday about the vote, and the extremely low turnout of Sunnis, the Muslim Scholars Association, the most influential group of Sunni clerics in the country, said a statement would be released today.

Mr Ali said it was too soon to say which Sunnni leaders might be involved in the new government.

Those tipped for all three executive positions so far are men, though Jenan Al-Obeidy, one of the top women in the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of the two major Shiite parties, said she hoped one of the two vice-presidential seats would be filled by a woman.

The Shiite list, members of which had predicted much larger victory than the 48 per cent of the vote they received, said they were considering challenging the results and still have two days to do so, but Mr Ali said it was unlikely.

- The Independent