Word: interims
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...world leaders entered office with as little fanfare as Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawer. When he became the interim President of Iraq in June, al-Yawer was viewed by the U.S. and Iraqi politicos who installed him as a malleable neophyte, somebody who would stay in the background while they ran the country. Having spent 20 years away from Iraq, as a student at Georgetown University and a telecommunications executive in Saudi Arabia, he was a stranger to his countrymen. Before his appointment, a poll asked Iraqis to rank 17 political figures in order of popularity. Al-Yawer came...
...when al-Yawer, 46, arrives at the White House this week for meetings, he is likely to receive a VIP's welcome. As the interim government's highest-ranking Sunni and a sheik of Iraq's most powerful tribe, al-Yawer has become a key U.S. ally. Chronic violence in Sunni-dominated areas has raised doubts about whether significant numbers of Sunnis, who make up 20% of Iraq's population but have ruled the country for more than 80 years, will participate in national elections scheduled for Jan. 30. Last month a group of political parties called for the elections...
...Yawer isn't sitting still. In the fall, he married his second wife, Nasrin Barwari, a Kurdish minister of public works in the interim government. Cole says Barwari gives al-Yawer nationwide appeal unmatched by any other politician. Al-Yawer, who has four children from another marriage, maintains that the union had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with romance. Asked how he managed to find time for that in his busy schedule, he says, "If you're not capable of love, how can you love your country?" Sounds like a pretty good campaign slogan...
...insurgents have left little doubt that they're going to do their utmost to disrupt the poll. Violence is likely to increase ahead of the elections, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Richard Myers said Wednesday during a visit to Iraq. And don't expect it to ebb afterward, either - interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi warned in a speech launching his own election campaign that violence would likely continue to escalate after the election...
...regime may become a central part of the acting prime minister?s appeal to voters - given the escalating security crisis, the power cuts and gasoline shortages and other basic privations facing ordinary Iraqis, the political advantages of incumbency may be few, and Allawi's backing by the U.S. as interim leader may not work to his advantage...