Tag: Haider al-Abadi

Image BAGHDAD — Iraq’s outgoing Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, an American ally, and the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, a longtime foe of the United States, said on Saturday that they had become political allies in an effort to form a new government in the wake of widely discredited elections. “We want to speed up the process of coming to a political agreement to send a positive message to the citizens that we are serious about moving forward,” Mr. Abadi said. Mr. Ameri is the leader of the Shiite militia movement widely credited with turning back the advance of the Islamic State in Iraq after 2014, with the help of Iranian training and American air support. Both Mr. Abadi and Mr. Sadr emphasized that their alliance did not mean the end of Mr. Sadr’s alliance with Mr. Ameri. It was unclear, however, whether the new parliament would carry out that decision. In Iraq’s complex electoral terrain, none of the four major groupings among the majority Shiites appears to have enough seats, even in coalition with all other Shiite parties, to form a government and choose a new prime minister. That will mean forming a coalition with Sunni and Kurdish parties as well. It was not clear whether the two leaders’ political alliance had agreed on any one candidate as their choice for prime minister. Jaafar Almosawi, Mr. Sadr’s political spokesman, said that the Sadr faction already had five people under consideration for the role of prime minister, but that issue did not come up in the alliance negotiations. Political analysts said the latest alliance was a movement toward bringing all of the Shiite groups together, but it also increased uncertainty about who would emerge as leader.