Cleric Urges Formation of Government

The senior Shiite Muslim cleric in Iraq called Saturday on members of the transitional national assembly elected more than a month ago to move quickly to form a government.

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s comments were directed primarily at members of the United Iraqi Alliance, which was formed with his backing and which won a slim majority of assembly seats in the Jan. 30 elections.

The mostly Shiite alliance includes several strong political organizations that are trying to translate their power in the coalition into a dominant position in the new administration. The discord has slowed the process of forming a government.

The January elections won widespread praise in Iraq and abroad for having succeeded despite the threat of insurgent violence. However, the slow progress toward selecting a prime minister, president and other top leaders has frustrated Iraqis.

That Sistani had to step in and use his religious and moral authority to keep the alliance intact suggests that any future government might be fragile at best. Because the alliance lacks a two-thirds majority, it also has to cobble together a larger coalition with other groups in the assembly or at least win their backing in order to take office.

Two members of the United Iraqi Alliance traveled to Sistani’s home in Najaf on Saturday to discuss their concerns: Sheik Fawaz Jarba, one of the few Sunni Muslims in the coalition, and Mudhar Shawkat. The latter is a top figure in the Iraqi National Congress, a onetime exile organization formed and led by Ahmad Chalabi, a former Pentagon favorite.

Jarba said Sistani had asked him to tell the alliance “to unite and to form the new government as soon as possible and not to delay this issue any longer, and that the interests of Iraq and Iraqis should be their first priority.”

Shawkat concurred: “He told us to forget minor issues. Our position has to be unified because Iraq needs us.”

Both denied that the groups they represent were thinking of leaving the alliance.

On Friday, a prominent member of the coalition and an ally of Chalabi’s, Abdul Kareem Mohammedawi, announced he was leaving the alliance because it had failed to form a government.

“It has been more than one month since the elections and there has yet to be a meeting of the national assembly and the government has not been formed,” he said in an interview on the Al Arabiya television channel. Mohammedawi led a resistance movement against Saddam Hussein in the southern marsh region and has been dubbed the “prince of the marshes.”

The newly elected councils in Iraq’s provinces also are struggling to form new governments as their predecessors cling to their posts.

The transitional national assembly, which also will be responsible for selecting a panel to draft the nation’s new constitution, has twice put off convening. Some members want to delay the first meeting until a deal is struck on forming a government, so that on the first day the entire Cabinet can be announced and voted on shortly thereafter.

In Baghdad, United Iraqi Alliance members met Saturday and agreed that the assembly should hold its first formal session no later than March 15. However, members could convene and then still spend several more weeks selecting a government.

Under current law, the assembly must agree by two-thirds majority on a presidential council of a president and two vice presidents. The council then has two weeks in which to choose a prime minister, who then must form a government.

The entire government could be announced at once or the process could drag out for weeks.

There are two main hurdles in forming a government. First, there are the fissures within the alliance, the largest bloc in the new assembly, over how to divvy up ministries and responsibilities among its key players.

The second problem centers around disagreements between the alliance and other groups -- such as a Kurdish coalition that has the second largest bloc of assembly members -- with whom they must strike a deal in order to form a government.

The United Iraqi Alliance holds 140 of the 275 assembly seats and so needs backing from other members to muster two-thirds of the vote required to form a government.

Although in theory the period when the constitution is drafted will be the time when key policies are hashed out, it appears that some policies as well as political spoils are being battled over now, even before the government has been formed as groups look for guarantees that they will get what they want.

A Times special correspondent in Najaf contributed to this report.