Word: moqtada
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...results currently are so close - with current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki neck-and-neck with former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, and the movement of radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr emerging with what may be a kingmaker's share of the vote - that Iraq could see months of deadlock that will do little to boost the country's faith in its politicians. Moreover, the election results have broken down along depressingly familiar sectarian and the ethnic fault lines - although with the authority of the traditional ethnic and sectarian parties weakening in a manner that will further complicate efforts...
...Maliki took a risk by separating himself from the Shi'ite Iraqi National Alliance (INA) that had propelled him to power, but struggled nonetheless to present himself as a truly national figure. While he had cracked down hard against terrorism and militias, especially the radical Shi'ite followers of Moqtada al Sadr, his support for a government de-Ba'athification committee that banned 500 parliamentary candidates - including many key Sunni politicians - a few weeks before the election appears to have helped fuel Sunni suspicion that he harbored a sectarian agenda. Maliki's troubles have been a boon to the Sadrists...
...similar, but more Sunni and more secular, Iraqiya coalition, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Pushing for decentralization are the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government - the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq - and an alliance of Shi'te parties led by Ammar al-Hakim, Ahmed Chalabi and Moqtada al-Sadr among others - which critics claim is bent on creating a semiautonomous Shi'ite enclave in oil-rich southern Iraq...
...formidable organization. Its predominant partners are the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq - the largest Shi'ite political party now led by Ammar al-Hakim, the son of the recently departed and revered cleric Abdulaziz al-Hakim - and the militant Moqtada al-Sadr's party, which has its pulse on the much of the country's poor and frustrated Shi'a underclass. (Read how the shoe-thrower put Maliki in a sensitive spot...
President Jalal Talabani on Sunday congratulated Ahmadinejad on his re-election. There were congratulatory messages, too, from top Shi'ite leaders Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and Moqtada al-Sadr. Hakim is in Tehran, receiving treatment for cancer, and Sadr is believed to be training to become an ayatullah in the Iranian holy city...