Vote Seen as Pivotal Test for Both Iraq and Maliki
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BAGHDAD -- A few months ago, building on genuine if not universal popularity, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki appeared poised to win a second term as Iraq's prime minister. Now, as Iraqis prepare to vote in parliamentary elections on March 7, his path to another four years in office has become increasingly uncertain, his campaign erratic and, to some, deeply troubling.
Far from consolidating power in the authoritarian manner that has plagued Iraq's history, Mr. Maliki risks losing it through the ballot box. In a region where the traditional exit from power has been "the coup or the coffin," as one Western diplomat here put it recently, the election has become a crucial test of Iraq's post-invasion democracy, and of Mr. Maliki's own fate.
How he wins -- or perhaps more significantly, how he loses -- will more than anything else determine the country's course in the coming years as President Obama carries out his promise to withdraw all American troops.
Even his own supporters acknowledge that Mr. Maliki now appears isolated, imperious and impetuous, his re-election prospects hurt by events out of his control and by others of his own making.
"I told him the other day, 'You don't have positions. You have reactions,'Â " said Izzat Shabander, an independent Shiite lawmaker who joined the prime minister's electoral coalition and sounded as if he were having second thoughts.
Mr. Maliki, who turns 60 in June, could yet prevail. According to politicians and polls conducted by parties and American officials, though not released publicly, Mr. Maliki's coalition will very likely win the largest plurality of the new Parliament's 325 seats. But it is unlikely to be anywhere near a majority.
To retain his post, he will have to cobble together a postelection coalition among parties whose leaders seem able to unite only in the desire to elect a new leader.
"The question was not whether they would win but by how much," said Kenneth M. Pollack, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, referring to the confidence he heard in discussions here last year with Mr. Maliki's aides. "At this point, they're fighting for their lives."
Mr. Maliki, an outwardly dour man with a jowly face darkened by a perpetual shadow of a beard, makes a simple case for re-election. He has repeated it over and over during his campaign.
First Published March 1, 2010 2:01 am
