SHIA AGAIN PONDER UIA AS AN ELECTORAL VEHICLE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BAGHDAD 001925

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/16/2019
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PREL KDEM IR IZ
SUBJECT: SHIA AGAIN PONDER UIA AS AN ELECTORAL VEHICLE

REF: A. BAGHDAD 00979

B. BAGHDAD 00401

C. BAGHDAD 01704

D. BAGHDAD 01600

E. BAGHDAD 01520

BAGHDAD 00001925 001.2 OF 003


Classified By: Deputy Chief of Mission Robert S. Ford for reasons 1.4 (
b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary. Local media and Embassy contacts are
speculating about the imminent revival of the Unified Iraqi
Alliance (UIA) as a coalition for the planned January
parliamentary election. The potential revival of the UIA
encompasses three main issues: whether the Islamic Supreme
Council of Iraq party (ISCI) and the Prime Minister's Da'wa
would run under one banner, whether the coalition brings in
significant non-Shia parties, and whether the Sadrists will
sign up. As Iraqi politicians participate in a dizzying
series of meetings on the subject, most challenging for them
will be to reach a compromise on the allocation of
parliamentary seats and leadership posts, including how the
alliance will nominate a candidate for prime minister. End
summary.

ISCI As Standard-Bearer
--------------


2. (C) The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI),since the
selection in mid-May of the imposing Humam Hamoudi as the
party's lead UIA negotiator, has attempted to publicly
portray itself at the UIA standard-bearer. This task is made
marginally easier by the fact that ISCI chairman Abd al-Aziz
al-Hakim is currently the nominal head of the UIA and that
ISCI/Badr is the largest remaining member of the UIA in
parliament. ISCI leaders are probably betting that advocating
for Shia unity will be popular among their constituents, as
well as among adherents of other Shia parties. Advocating for
a re-invigorated UIA also allows ISCI, in the event the UIA
fails to come together, to fend off blame for causing an
intra-Shia schism.


3. (C) At the same time, ISCI leaders have linked their
party's poor performance in January 2009 provincial elections
partly to its overly religious message and sectarian branding
(ref A and B). Under a new UIA, ISCI would have to balance
the need to rally the Shia masses against the decreasing
popularity of sectarian-based politics. This balancing act is
already underway. ISCI MP and cleric Jalal al-Din al-Saghir
during a Friday sermon on July 10 criticized an unnamed
cabinet official for calling the UIA sectarian. Hadi
al-Amiri, the head of the Badr Organization, told Poloffs on
July 11 (using revisionist history) that the UIA was never a
sectarian coalition because it always has been open to
non-Shia. Amiri said that in going forward, ISCI will build a
large electoral coalition that includes Shia, Sunnis Arabs,
Kurds, Christians and Turkomen. Minister of State for
National Dialogue Akram al-Hakim, a founding member of ISCI,
told us on July 12 that a reconstituted UIA must extend
beyond sectarian lines to increase its national appeal.


4. (C) Unlike 2005, proponents of a new UIA do not talk of it
as a vehicle to ensure Shia dominance within government. On
ISCI's English-language website, its deputy chairman, Ammar
al-Hakim, argued that a broad UIA was needed to mitigate the
"loss of votes" caused when small, desperate parties fail to
get enough votes to obtain representation. (Note: Shia
clerics have not yet publicly advocated for a new UIA. End
note.)


5. (C) Raja al-Khalili, an advisor to Vice President Adil Abd
al-Mahdi (ISCI),told us in June that during UIA
negotiations, PM Maliki demanded that he remain the
coalition's pick for prime minister. ISCI has not ruled out
this possibility, Khalili said, but a second Maliki term must
come with enhanced constraints upon the Prime Minister's
Qcome with enhanced constraints upon the Prime Minister's
authority. (Maliki, by contrast, has publicly complained he
is already too constrained by the "consensus" government that
forced him to accept rivals within his cabinet.) Khalili
claimed VP Abd al-Mahdi is trying to recruit former Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi to the UIA so to better appeal to Sunni
Arabs and Kurdish voters. Notably, ISCI has not floated the
idea of basing its electoral coalition upon its durable
alliance with the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and Kurds in the
parliament, a partnership that has rallied together this year
to successfully assert legislative oversight of the PM's
office.

Sunni Arabs Assume Shia Will Coalesce
--------------


6. (C) Meanwhile, some Sunni Arab politicians are expecting a
revived UIA that boxes them out. Advisors to VP Tariq
al-Hashimi and Deputy Prime Minister Issawi told us in July

BAGHDAD 00001925 002.2 OF 003


they expected the announcement of a new UIA this month and
that the Iranian government was partly behind the rebuilding
effort. In June meetings with Poloffs, IIP MP Salim
al-Jibouri and Salih Mutlaq, leader of the Iraqi National
Dialogue Front, predicted the return of a Shia UIA that would
push the Sunnis and Kurds into their own sectarian blocs for
the election--a comment that KRG President Masoud Barzani has
also echoed. Mutlaq claimed that Maliki had offered him the
presidency of Iraq in exchange for an electoral alliance. He
had rejected the offer, however, because his constituents
would abandon him for joining Maliki, who is still perceived
as sectarian among Sunni circles. Jibouri predicted Iraq's
election to mirror Lebanon's--large competing ethno-sectarian
parties--but said his IIP will seek to reconstruct its
present cross-sectarian cooperation in parliament with ISCI
and the Kurds. (ISCI's Jalal ad-Din Saghir told us the same
when we dined with him at the Baratha mosque at the end of
June.)


7. (C) The Secretary General of the IIP, Osama Tikriti, told
Poloff on July 1 that his party was holding talks with Ayad
Allawi, among others, to form a "national coalition." Tikriti
added that relations between the IIP and Da'wa were warming,
but did not indicate anything tangible regarding a potential
alliance.

Maliki Seeking a "National List"
--------------


8. (C) Advisors to PM Maliki have consistently told us since
provincial elections that Maliki and his provincial election
State of Law coalition would avoid a sectarian alliance like
the old UIA. Instead, they claimed, Maliki intends to form a
cross-sectarian or "national list." In March, Sami
al-Askari, a close Maliki advisor, stated to Emboffs that
State of Law succeeded in provincial elections because it
emphasized Iraqi unity and a strong central government. For
the parliamentary election, Askari said, Da'wa will seek a
national list that runs in all provinces, including placing
Sunni Arabs on the ticket in Anbar. MP Jabir Habib Jabir (UIA
independent) claimed to us that he is working behind the
scenes to make this happen for Maliki (ref C). Sadiq
al-Rikabi, another close Maliki advisor, as recently as July
7 told us it was unlikely Maliki would join a reconstituted
Shia coalition for the parliamentary election. Rikabi said
"we are trying to avoid the Lebanese experiment" of a
sectarian and divided government. Amid meetings with UIA
colleagues in Baghdad, Maliki last week visited Anbar, the
Sunni Arab heartland, to call for a "national plan" and to
warn against "sectarian and racist plans."

Comment: Inclusion of Sadrists Risky; Premiership
Indeterminate
-------------- --------------


9. (C) For both ISCI and Da'wa, gaining Muqtada al-Sadr and
the Sadrist Trend as electoral allies would bring a reliable
swath of nationalistic voters concerned about welfare issues.
If the Sadrists join a new UIA, Da'wa and ISCI would have to
reconcile the Sadrists' anti-U.S. positions (and regular
criticism of the Iraqi government and security forces) with
the Shia-led government's call for close bilateral ties with
the U.S. In the event that a referendum on the U.S.-Iraq
Security Agreement (SA) is held with the national election
(ref D and E),the Sadrists would be tempted to remind voters
that their Da'wa and ISCI rivals supported the SA. Another
challenge of a Sadrist return to the UIA would be management
of Sadrist expectations of future government posts. For
example, during the formation of provincial governments early
Qexample, during the formation of provincial governments early
this year, Da'wa was reluctant to offer Sadrist candidates
the governorships of areas that border Iran for fear they
would allow more weapons smuggling. The memory of the baleful
mismanagement of the Health Ministry under Sadrist leadership
from 2006 to March 2007 must give serious Iraqi officials
pause in considering whether to offer the Sadrists a path
back into government.


10. (C) Comment continued. If Da'wa and ISCI were to agree to
the terms of a new UIA, smaller Shia parties would likely
bandwagon given the expectation that the UIA would once again
be the largest bloc in parliament from which a new government
would be formed. However, even the largest conceivable Shia
UIA would require some Sunni Arab or Kurdish MPs to support
formation of a government. It is possible that if Maliki
fails to build a genuine national, cross-sectarian coalition,
a re-united UIA would pull in a few Sunni Arabs to run in
Sunni Arab provinces like Anbar and Ninewa. The unified Shia
list that ran in January 2005 had nine Sunni Arabs on its
lists. (Notably, they have all disappeared from the national
political scene now.) Hadi al-Amiri, the Badr chief, told
Poloffs on July 11 that a new UIA would devise its own
internal mechanism for nominating a prime minister. He
cautioned that some other bloc leaders would have to agree on


***********************
* Missing Section 003 *
***********************