New alliances and a new political scene is emerging

No doubt that Maliki’s chances for a sec­ond term are in decline if not close to zero, take for exam­ple today’s report on Al-Hayat: Wash­ing­ton invited Barzani, Abdul Mahdi and Hashimi for talks with Obama and Biden (all the three are Maliki’s oppo­nents). Another exam­ple is Elaph’s report today say­ing: Sis­tani hold Maliki respon­si­ble for Shi­ite Unity split — Sis­tani also gave instruc­tions to his deputies not to pro­mote Maliki in the reli­gious ceremonies.

The state­ment released after a meet­ing held between Pres­i­dent of Kur­dis­tan region, Mas­soud Barzani, and the leader of the Supreme Coun­cil Ammar Al-Hakim in Salah Al-Din sum­mer resort pro­posed the idea of the estab­lish­ment of a broad-based National Front between the two polit­i­cal blocs, stress­ing on the impor­tance to inten­sify efforts for the suc­cess of the com­ing elections.

The above text put together for the media con­sump­tion, in real­ity this meet­ing is a major event and a clever move made by Ammar Al-Hakim, much big­ger than the for­ma­tion of “broad-based National Front”, espe­cially since the Jus­tice and Accountability’s deci­sion of the exclu­sion of can­di­dates had turned the elec­toral excep­tions significantly.

The idea to dis­solve rival coali­tions by the Jus­tice and Account­abil­ity Com­mit­tee paves the way for the emer­gence of a new coali­tions and alliances. Iyad Allawi for exam­ple is the biggest win­ner in this recent cri­sis, which put him at the front of his list instead of shar­ing the “image” with Mut­laq. If the Jus­tice and Account­abil­ity Com­mit­tee insists on its deci­sion to ban Mut­laq, all Mutlaq’s votes will go to Allawi.

Maliki’s “State of Law” depends on his name only, and in an “open-list” based elec­tion sys­tem. The deci­sion made by the Jus­tice and Account­abil­ity Com­mit­tee has pro­vided Allawi (and Bolani) with major free pub­lic­ity, and a pow­er­ful force to go head to head against Maliki.

Most likely, that Iyad Allawi will be part of Barzani– Hakim “project” in the future for these reasons:

- The rela­tion between Barzani and Allawi is very good.

- The rela­tion between Allawi’s bloc and Al-Hakim’s bloc are non-intersectional.

- Oppos­ing Maliki’s sec­ond term as aPrime Min­is­ter is the com­mon goal among the three polit­i­cal blocs.

- Al-Hakim’s advan­tage of win­ning the Sadrists in Allawi’s coalition.

The polit­i­cal map is changed, and a new coali­tions and alliances started to emerge.