IRAQ: LEADERS OF THE UNITED IRAQI ALLIANCE VISIT SHI'ITE CLERIC GRAND AYATOLLAH ALI AL-SISTANI FOR GUIDANCE ON FUTURE CONSTITUTION

Record ID: 338383

  • Title: IRAQ: LEADERS OF THE UNITED IRAQI ALLIANCE VISIT SHI'ITE CLERIC GRAND AYATOLLAH ALI AL-SISTANI FOR GUIDANCE ON FUTURE CONSTITUTION
  • Date: 27th February 2005
  • Summary: (BN 13) NAJAF, IRAQ (FEBRUARY 27, 2005) (REUTERS) 1. WIDE OF IMAM ALI SHRINE/ PEOPLE ON STREET 0.06 2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) AHMED CHALABI, SENIOR MEMBER OF UNITED IRAQI ALLIANCE PARTY: "Don't look at personalities now. We are calling for the meeting of the National Assembly and continuing negotiations to achieve a form of State and a form of governme
  • Embargoed: 14th March 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NAJAF AND BAGHDAD, IRAQ
  • Country: Iraq
  • Reuters ID: LVA9DQWWY4UAUFZ55BK33SY5OPAT
  • Story Text: United Iraqi Alliance leaders visit influential
    Shiite cleric for guidance on future constitution.


    Leaders of the United Iraqi Alliance, a group of
    Islamist Shi'ite parties who won the election, visited
    Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the southern Shi'ite holy
    city of Najaf on Sunday (February 27) for talks on a future
    constitution for Iraq.

    Any recommendations from Sistani, Iraq's top Shi'ite
    spiritual leader, are likely be taken up.

    Intense jockeying to determine the make-up of the
    future Iraqi government, including the top position of
    prime minister, has been going on for weeks and shows
    little sign of letting up.

    Ahmed Chalabi, a senior member of the Alliance, who
    withdrew his candidacy for the Party candidate for Prime
    Minister, however, urged people to concentrate on the make
    up of a future constitution.

    "Don't look at personalities now. We are calling for
    the meeting of the National Assembly and continuing
    negotiations to achieve a form of State and a form of
    government," he told reporters after meeting Sistani.

    Two people are now in the running to be prime minister
    - Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a doctor and former exile who is the
    United Iraqi Alliance candidate, and Iyad Allawi, the
    current prime minister.

    Sistani has endorsed Jaafari's name for the post.

    Both the Shi'ite alliance, whose election victory
    secured it 140 seats in the 275-seat parliament, and
    Allawi's secular coalition, which came third in the vote
    winning 40 seats, need the support of the second-placed
    Kurds to form a government. Both are working hard at
    gaining support from other groups.

    "There is an increase in membership (in the alliance)
    for the National Assembly," said Hussein Shah Hurstani, a
    senior member of the United Iraqi Alliance Party.

    "The 140 seats are now 149 for the United Alliance. The
    fact is that Alliance is more solid than before and there
    is a determination and consciousness within the members to
    save Iraq and push forward the constitutional process that
    would include all Iraqis."
    Once a government is formed, and Western diplomats
    believe it could take weeks longer, its main task will be
    organising the drafting of the new constitution under which
    Iraq is due to hold another election before mid-December
    this year.

    It will also have to deal with a raging insurgency
    which Iraqi forces are still ill-equipped to deal with.

    At a news conference in Baghdad on Sunday, Jaafari
    stressed the need for continuing presence of multinational
    forces, saying its support in keeping security meant it no
    longer constituted occupation.

    "The multinational force in Iraq differs legally from
    an occupation force on the basis that it is part of
    supporting the security process," he told reporters.


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