Word: sistani
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...Under the enlightened leadership of Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the Shi'ite majority has played the democracy game with gusto. It has acknowledged the importance of Kurdish and Sunni minority rights and seems unlikely to demand the constitutional imposition of strict Islamic law. Most important, it has resisted the temptation to retaliate against the outrageous violence of Sunni extremists, especially against Shi'ite mosques. Several Administration officials told me they hope that Hamas and Hizballah will respond similarly to the peaceful desires of their people, that they will emphasize stability, economic development and social services and avoid military posturing...
...Even in Iraq, where democratic elections became possible only because the U.S. invasion had ousted Saddam Hussein, the clear winner at the polls was the Shiite Islamist-led coalition assembled by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The overtly pro-U.S. list of interim prime minister Iyad Allawi polled only 14 percent of the vote. It is to the Bush administration?s credit that it has repeatedly insisted it will accept the choices of the Iraqi voters, even when those obviously conflict with U.S. preferences. Such flexibility will be indispensable if the Arab democracy project is to be much more than...
...been Ahmad Chalabi, the former favorite of the Pentagon, whose relationship with the U.S. soured after he was accused of passing secrets to Iran. Though he commands little popular backing, Chalabi waged an aggressive campaign for the premiership, hoping to pick up support from uncommitted members of the Sistani List, or slate of parties approved by Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, to which both Chalabi and al-Jaafari belong. But al-Jaafari's ties to the list's powerful religious bloc give him a formidable advantage...
...frontrunner for the key position of Prime Minister is currently Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of the Shiite Islamist Dawa party. Jaafari is the favorite to win the nomination of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance list, assembled under the auspices of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. His key rival for the job, economist Adel Abdel Mahdi of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), agreed to take himself out of the running. In exchange for backing the Dawa man, SCIRI will likely get a candidate of its own choosing into one of two vice presidencies, and also...
...attacks, mainly against Iraqi security forces, killing 12 in an ambush in Kirkuk. Even so, the vote jump-started a first chapter in democracy: before the ballots were even counted, politicians in Baghdad were already engaging in the ancient art of dealmaking. Early trends suggest that the so-called Sistani List--a slate of religious Shi'ites and secular parties that has the backing of Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani--has won a majority in the 275-member Transitional National Assembly. Vying for second place are a unified Kurdish list and the secular list of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi...