Hia­tus for the com­ing two days, Twit­ter con­tin­ues.

While Maliki renewed his attacks on Saudi Ara­bia yes­ter­day,  Ammar Al-Hakim thanked Saudi Ara­bia for its “sup­port­ive role” all these years (direct reac­tion from Dawa’s Al-Adeeb say­ing that Iraq wants to renew its rela­tion with Saudi Arabia).

While Maliki pushes to esca­late the Syria — Iraq cri­sis, Adil Abdul Mehdi sent a con­do­lences mes­sage to the Syr­ian Vice Pres­i­dent Farouk al-Sharaa with the death of his brother.

So, it is very clear that the news of Maliki’s “State of Law” to join INA are still rumors, and this is what Maliki said yes­ter­day in an answer to a ques­tion addressed to him by a journalist:

[Joins] a coali­tion that allows each side to keep its struc­ture, name and pri­vacy … “State of Law” will wel­come this agree­ment with INA if they agree on this con­di­tion … to form a National Unity Coalition.

A flex­i­ble answer and the rea­son explained today by Al-Hayat reporter Mushriq Abbas:

The shape and the size of the threat posed by the Allawi — Mut­laq coali­tion will deter­mine the rela­tion­ship between Maliki and Al-Hakim — Al-Sadr.

The Shi­ite lead­ers will reach a set­tle­ment may not nec­es­sar­ily require unity in the polit­i­cal form or a sin­gle elec­toral list, but expected to get pre-election set­tle­ment urg­ing the Shi­ite street to vote for “State of law” and “INA” together under the slo­gan “pre­vent the return of Baathists”.

And this is exactly what reported today on Awan:

Maliki asked INA to orga­nize the bal­lot paper in a way that both names of the coali­tions to take place on a sep­a­rate places on the two cor­ners of the joined bal­lot paper, but his pro­posal was turned down by INA, for rea­sons includ­ing the fact that the Elec­toral Com­mis­sion would not agree to this pro­ce­dure, because it is not being done any­where in the world, as well as its com­plex­ity and vio­la­tion the inter­nal reg­u­la­tions of the Office.

Agrees Al-Qabas core­spon­dent Nazar Hatim say­ing that both Shi­ite sides will meet each oth­ers sooner or later to face their com­mon oppo­nent Allawi — Mut­laq, but:

Under the new law — the voter can choose three can­di­dates, this raises fear and anx­i­ety among many peo­ple in the polit­i­cal arena — Fol­low­ing the adop­tion of the open list, the public’s desire to pun­ish all those who brought lit­tle ben­e­fits to the public.