Word: sunni
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Baqubah, the capital of Iraq's Diyala province, is a largely colorless place except for the winter orange harvest and the hundreds of campaign posters that line its streets. But at least the sectarian battles between Sunnis and Shi'ites that once raged through the city are now confined mostly to the ballot box as Baqubah, along with the rest of Iraq, prepares for national parliamentary elections on March 7. Inside the fortified government headquarters, Diyala's governor, Abdul-Nasser al-Mahdawi, is relatively optimistic that the elections - the fifth poll since the U.S. brought democracy to Iraq - will...
...Iraq should be more centralized in the hands of the government in Baghdad or dispersed to its provinces and regions. The centralizers include al-Maliki's Shi'ite-dominated State of Law coalition, which is running on its record of providing security and disarming Iraq's militias. The more Sunni and secular Iraqi National Movement, led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, is likewise in favor of a strong central government. The push for decentralization is represented by the ruling parties of the Kurdistan Regional Government and an alliance of Shi'ite parties - led by Ammar al-Hakim and chastened...
...neoconservatives to be the country's new leader. Chalabi fell out with the U.S. in 2004 and has reinvented himself as a Shi'ite nationalist allied with the Sadrists. As the co-head of a secretive government de-Baathification committee, Chalabi helped orchestrate the banning of about 500 mostly Sunni candidates from running in the election, a move that revived fears of a return to sectarian violence. "The Americans say they came here to build democracy, but what kind of democracy is this?" asks Saleh al-Mutlaq, the leader of the country's second largest Sunni Muslim party...
...provinces show the incumbent, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, carrying predominantly Shi'ite areas - despite a strong challenge from supporters of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Former U.S.-installed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite who, like Maliki, leads a broad nationalist coalition with strong Sunni Arab representation, appears to have prevailed in predominantly Sunni areas north of Baghdad...
...Although Maliki's and Allawi's blocs both articulate a message of Iraqi national unity over ethnic or sectarian loyalties, the political contest is still fueled by the unresolved struggle over power and resources between rival communities. That contest echoes a regional power struggle, with Iraq's predominantly Sunni neighbors such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria supporting a greater share of power for Iraq's Sunnis. Allawi's list of candidates includes some of the key Sunni political players, and the self-styled strongman makes no secret of his desire to challenge Iranian influence in Baghdad. Iran would prefer...