Iraq’s political love triangle

In recent weeks there has been tongue in cheek commentary in the Iraqi and regional press as to whether the better metaphor for the alliance between outgoing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law Coalition and the second major Shi’a bloc in Iraqi politics, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA), is a marriage or a mere engagement announcement. This irreverent speculation about the permanence of the pairing gets to the heart of a delicate three-way political dance underway in Baghdad.  Will a reunified Shi’a alliance be the heart of the new Iraqi government? Or will the competing ambitions of Maliki and his erstwhile Shi’a allies open the door for former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s al-Iraqiyya bloc to spoil the nuptials?

Baghdad, Erbil, Washington, Tehran and Riyadh appear to agree on the need for Iraq to have an inclusive government with representation from each of its major communities. This can either be taken as a remarkable confluence of interests or a sign that we need to look elsewhere to understand what is going on in the seemingly interminable government formation process. Inclusivity may be the buzzword, but it is the foundational alliance that will likely determine how a big-tent government looks and acts, not the number of parties squeezed under the tent. Even if all major blocs are ultimately brought in, the internal reconciliation optics and regional response to the new government could be substantially different depending on whether it is headed by the reconstituted Shi’a alliance versus a cross-sectarian pairing of either State of Law-Iraqiyya or Iraqiyya-INA.

Four major political blocs contested Iraq’s national elections and will determine the shape of the next government: Maliki’s State of Law, the rump Shi’a Iraqi National Alliance (INA), the Sunni and secular al-Iraqiyya slate, and the Kurdistan Alliance. However, the leadership dance is only a three-way contest because the Kurdistan Alliance has no designs on heading the government and has said that it will not try to veto any of the possible nominees for Prime Minister. There is also a perception in Baghdad that the Kurdish desire to be inside the government to protect their interests outweighs any preferences they might have for one or another candidate. This leaves three possible blocs from which the Prime Minister could emerge: State of Law, the INA, or al-Iraqiyya.

The most important factor in the vote’s outcome was the division of the unified Shi’a list which dominated the 2005 elections. In 2010, Maliki’s Da’wa Party undertook a trial separation from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Sadrist trend. This splitting of the Shi’a vote opened the door for al-Iraqiyya to win a narrow plurality at the polls. Since no party captured more than 28 percent of the seats in Parliament, some form of a coalition will be required to form a government. Faced with this divided vote, the four major lists have gone further and repeatedly spoken of the need for a government of "national partnership." 

This all sounds nice on the surface, but a national partnership could run the gamut from true inclusion to fig-leaf representation of certain groups. In reality, the international orientation, coherence and possible reconciliation value of any such partnership will likely depend on the sequence in which it is formed rather than its final composition. The first, and perhaps half-way completed scenario, is that the INA and State of Law get fully back together and agree on a Prime Minister. The Kurds have already said that they would support any Prime Minister these two blocs jointly nominate, and together the Kurdistan Alliance and two Shi’a blocs would control almost two-thirds of Parliament. These three entities would then turn to al-Iraqiyya, or parts of al-Iraqiyya, and invite it to fill out the government. Such a partnership government would likely resemble the previous government, have a Shi’a-Kurdish bent and probably only include second-order al-Iraqiyya participation.

There are other scenarios. There is a widespread belief in Baghdad that it will be difficult for Allawi to return to the Prime Minister position due to Iranian objections and perceptions that he is the U.S. and Arab candidate for the top office. But this does not mean that al-Iraqiyya lacks opportunities to take advantage of the internal rivalries in the as-yet unconsummated Shi’a alliance. The INA is the smallest entity in terms of number of seats among the contending blocs for Prime Minister. Its best chance to get the premiership might actually be through an alliance with al-Iraqiyya rather than hoping to come out on top of an extended intra-Shi’a negotiation with the powerful incumbent office holder (Maliki). An Iraqiya-INA joint candidate for PM could likely obtain Kurdish support, leaving the State of Law with the leftovers of national partnership.  Meanwhile, an Iraqiyya-State of Law alliance to head the government is probably the most ideologically coherent pairing, in the sense that both blocs share nationalist and centralist views of the Iraqi state. This pairing would have absolute majority in Parliament and not technically need further partners to form a government, although it would come under U.S. pressure to bring in the Kurds. 

To have a chance at either scenario, the catch for al-Iraqiyya is it probably has to abandon its hope to head the government, approach one of the two Shi’a blocs, and offer to support its candidate for PM in return for key senior positions. This in fact appears to be at least a partial sentiment within Iraqiya, with some of its members expressing concern that the bloc’s all-out focus on the PM position could result in it having no post-election role. This incipient frustration with a party leader, and fear of being squeezed out of the political match-making, is not unique to al-Iraqiyya. It is almost two months since the INA and the State of Law first announced their merger, and the two lists do not appear close to settling on a joint nominee for Prime Minister. This past week saw the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat claim that some Maliki confidants have advised him to step aside so that the INA-State of Law deal can be finalized.  In parallel to these internal rumblings, the three big parties continue to flirt with each other and the Kurds in order to gain leverage in this political love triangle. (See for example an INA complaint that Tuesday’s Allawi-Maliki meeting was intended to pressure them into accepting a second Maliki term.)

The bottom line for outside observers trying to keep track of all this dizzying activity is that while we think we know the final shape of the government (national partnership), the order in which Iraqis get there is important. The proto-Shi’a alliance remains the most likely bet to initiate the process, but its continuing differences allow al-Iraqiyya to live in hope. And a decision by al-Iraqiyya to sacrifice the top job in return for becoming the senior partner in government could really re-shuffle the deck. At stake here is the perception and orientation of the government. Will it be perceived as strongly sectarian, with the risks this implies for internal stability and Iraq’s regional re-integration? Will it have the type of legitimacy to make progress on Arab-Kurdish issues in the provinces north of Baghdad where Iraqiyya won a large portion of its votes? The answers to these questions will by no means be determined by the order of government formation, but the sequencing of alliance-making will give us an indication of the prospects for progress on these important counts.

Sean Kane is an Iraq Program Officer with the United States Institute of Peace.  This  article was based, in part, on recent meetings in Baghdad with officials from Iraq’s four major electoral blocs.