Political blocs “flirt” with the Sadrists

I think this para­graph on Al-Akhbar explains why Maliki started to improve his rela­tion with the Sadrists a week ago []:

Sources said that the cause of the armed con­fronta­tions occurred between Al-Sadr and the gov­ern­ment forces in Basra and Sadr-City last year, is the U.S. reports indi­cated sig­nif­i­cant progress of the Sadr move­ment will affect the results of the Provin­cial elec­tions. The Amer­i­can advised the Iraqi gov­ern­ment to act against the grow­ing pop­u­lar­ity of the Sadrists.

Since the Amer­i­can grip on the Iraqi deci­sion mak­ing is not as hard as it used to be before, not only Maliki and his Dawa Party, Al-Watan

A del­e­ga­tion rep­re­sent­ing the tribes of the mid-Euphrates and the west­ern region also polit­i­cal par­ties, includ­ing the Iraqi Islamic Party, Dawa party and the Supreme Coun­cil met with the polit­i­cal body of Sadrists.

And the Sadrists are “spoiled” with these “offers”, so the needed a spe­cial meet­ing to pick a par­ties and polit­i­cal blocs to support:

Var­i­ous Sadrists bod­ies of media, polit­i­cal, social move­ment, the lead­ers of Al-Momahidon and Sadrists mem­bers in the Par­lia­ment in the joint meet­ing formed a joint meet­ing, to dis­cuss devel­op­ments of the Sadrists posi­tion from the com­ing Provin­cial elec­tion, includ­ing strengthen the pres­ence of Sadr Trend to win seats in the elec­tions by sup­port­ing inde­pen­dent can­di­dates or con­tribute in sup­port­ing spe­cific elec­toral lists.