Word: maliki
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Prospects for al-Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, and the political figures who stood at the edge of it have steadily dimmed since last spring, when government forces of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki emerged as the de facto victors in battles with the Mahdi Army across southern Iraq and Baghdad. Weeks of fighting in the early months of 2008 ended in a stalemate. Since then, Iraqi security forces have rounded up scores of Sadrists with the help of U.S. troops, effectively hollowing out the movement's street power and political influence. Meanwhile, the vast popularity that al-Sadr...
...Rubeiy isn't a top contender. He is campaigning as a member of the secular Iraqi National Accord Party, headed by former Prime Minister Ayad al-Allawi. It is a party that falls below the popularity of ruling Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party. Rubeiy believes that his party ranks fourth or fifth in the eyes of his fellow Iraqis in the capital...
...past three years, parliament has also seen the ruling Shi'ite bloc slowly split apart. The most significant blow came in 2007 with the angry departure of dozens of followers of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. And the bloc's remaining big powers - al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq - will be running on separate lists come Jan. 31, thereby splitting the Shi'ite vote...
...evolving picture of the Prime Minister's popularity in the Iraqi streets may provide another example of fading sectarianism. Al-Maliki has gained a wide base of support across Sunni and Shi'ite communities over the past year for taking a hard stance in negotiations over the new U.S.-Iraqi security pact and for playing tough with both Shi'ite and Sunni insurgents. "I'll vote for Maliki's party," says Rafaat Khalid Ahmed, a university lecturer in Baghdad's predominantly Sunni Mansour district. "He showed courage in dealing with the major issues in Iraq, and that helped him defeat...
...Religion and politics will never go together," says Emad al-Azzawi, a mobile-phone vendor in Hurriya district who says he too would vote for al-Maliki's Dawa Islamic Party, despite its predominant Shi'ite background. Indeed, al-Maliki has also found friends in a host of new tribe-based parties that have grown out of Anbar's largely Sunni Awakening movement. (See pictures of a summit of Anbar's sheiks...