BAGHDAD, 15 December 2004 — Just months after falling out with the United States and being written off by his rivals as politically washed up, Ahmad Chalabi is back in from the cold.
The leader of the Iraqi National Congress, which grouped Saddam Hussein’s enemies in exile, has emerged as a power broker in the main election list for the country’s Shiite majority, which could dominate the Jan. 30 ballot.
Chalabi used his connections with influential Shiite cleric Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani to help draw up a mostly Shiite list backed by the Iranian-born scholar, people familiar with the list said.
“This list is not about a theocracy or an Islamic Republic of Iraq. It is about democracy and representation of the Iraqi people,” Chalabi told Reuters in an interview.
Under the postwar election system, Iraq will be treated as a single electoral district. The electorate will vote for lists of candidates. The number of votes received will determine how many people on the list get into the 275-seat National Assembly.
Names high on the list therefore have the best chance of being elected. Chalabi is 10th on the Shiite list.
The Shiite list — called the United Iraqi Alliance — includes independents who will check the influence of Islamist parties, such as Dawa and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which was founded in Iran in 1982.
SCIRI leader Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim is number one on the list and Dawa head Ibrahim Al-Jafari is among the top five names. Both parties have had an uneasy relationship with Washington.
Despite the sectarian representation at the head of the alliance, Chalabi said pragmatism would govern Shiite dealings with Washington.
He said he expected the elected Parliament to seek an agreement with the United States to determine the status of their forces in Iraq and agree a timetable for withdrawal.
“There is no desire among people on this list to call for a sudden and irresponsible withdrawal of American forces from Iraq,” Chalabi said. He was the best-connected Iraqi opposition leader in Washington. He became a vocal critic of US policy in Iraq after years as a Pentagon favorite.
