Al-Jafari Out: Al-Maliki In

The Shiites have a new candidate for Prime Minster: Jawad Al-Maliki.

Jawad al-Maliki, an experienced political operator and advocate for Iraq's Shiite Muslims, won the approval of his coalition's leaders for the post of prime minister on Friday, a day after the alliance's original nominee bowed out under political pressure.

Maliki, a senior member of the coalition of Shiite parties that holds the most seats in Iraq's parliament, is now on a course to lead Iraq's first long-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein. If ultimately chosen, the 55-year-old former exile will inherit grave challenges, among them an economy in tatters, an insurgent movement sworn to destroying Iraq's democracy, and ethnic and sectarian tensions that threaten to tear the country apart.

Leaders of the Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, said on Friday night that Maliki's nomination by the alliance's political committee would be put to the coalition's full membership on Saturday morning for a vote. If accepted there, his name would then be formally presented to Iraq's parliament, along with a list of nominees for other top posts, later that afternoon.

But events hardly ever proceed so smoothly in the Iraqi political process, which has been held up for months by a debate over who would be prime minister. Incumbent Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari gave in to heavy pressure Thursday and surrendered his hard-won nomination for the post. Jafari's withdrawal appears to have had the effect of removing the main obstacle to forming the government that will rule Iraq for the next four years. On Friday night, leaders of the Shiite alliance said that they had reached an understanding with leaders of rival Sunni Arab and Kurdish political blocs over who would hold the top posts in the government and believed they had gained their support for Maliki.

Who is this guy anyway? Juan Cole tells us a little bit about him, and how he might not be much better than al-Jafari:

Note that in 2004 he was a major spokesman for Islamic law being implemented in Iraq and expressed reservations about the Interim Constitution on those grounds. Likewise, he is obviously fairly anti-Israeli, wondering if Israeli troops were operating in Iraq disguised as US soldiers, and worried that Israelis might be able to own property in Iraq. He is also a hardliner on debaathification and I don't think the Sunni Arabs are going to like him better than Jaafari.

So...we'll wait and see.