MALIKI RESHAPING KARBALA POLITICAL SCENE IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 000671

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/14/2019
TAGS: PGOV PINR ECON IZ
SUBJECT: MALIKI RESHAPING KARBALA POLITICAL SCENE IN
AFTERMATH OF ELECTIONS

Classified By: PRT Team Leader John Kincannon for reasons 1.4 (b) and (
d).


1. (C) Summary. Senior political leaders tell the PRT that
Prime Minister Maliki has been the decision-maker in
determining the Karbala political line-up following the
January 31 elections. Maliki reportedly brokered the
political deal between the Dawlat al-Qanun (State of Law) and
Amal al-Rafidain (Hope of Two Rivers) slates to form the next
provincial government, assigned different players their jobs
in the new provincial government, and has offered current
Governor Aqeel al-Khazali an unspecified job in Baghdad. A
leading member of the outgoing Provincial Council (PC)
predicts the new PC will not concentrate on improving basic
services, but will instead focus on preparations to win the
national political election in 2010. Meanwhile, leading
Karbala vote-getter Yusuf al-Haboubi has begun a public
relations campaign asserting his right to the governorship.
End Summary.


2. (C) According to numerous local contacts, Prime Minister
Maliki (a native of Karbala province's Hindiya district) has
been the king-maker in determining the political lineup in
Karbala since the January 31 elections. The PM's strong role
is natural, given that both Dawlat al-Qanun and Amal
al-Rafidain are Da'wa-based parties that consider themselves
loyal and answerable to Maliki. The secretary of the
Provincial Council told us that outgoing Governor Aqeel (who
was reelected to a seat on the PC) met with Maliki on March 9
and was offered a job in Baghdad, a position he will take
rather than return to the relative anonymity of being a
normal PC member.

Governor, PC Chair Slots Decided
--------------


3. (C) According to current Deputy PC Chairman Hamid
al-Torfi and other reliable sources, Maliki brokered the new
leadership slate, which will be formally announced on or
about March 18. The new Governor will be the leading
candidate from the Dawlat al-Qanun (State of Law) slate, Amal
al-Din al-Hir, currently the Director General of Agriculture.
The PC Chairman will be Mohammed Hamid al-Musawi from Amal
al-Rafidain (Two Rivers),with his brother, Abbas Hamid
al-Musawi, will become First Deputy Governor. (The Musawi
brothers are related to Maliki by marriage through their
brother, Major Ali, who currently serves in Wasit Province.)
The Deputy PC Chair will reportedly go to Dawlat al-Qanun's
Naseef Jassem Mohammad. The second Deputy Governor slot,
said Torfi, may be left empty or given to a Sadrist as a
token political concession to the national post-election
political understanding between Da'wa and the Sadrists.

Setting the PC Agenda from Baghdad?
--------------


4. (C) Torfi told us that the new PC's agenda "depends on
Maliki." He said Da'wa has departed from its roots as a
religious party and has now become the party of the Prime
Minister and his policies. Since the new Karbala PC is
controlled by two lists closely associated with Da'wa, this
may translate into de facto control of the Karbala PC by
Maliki, if party discipline can be enforced. Noting that the
previous PC in Karbala represented many different interests,
but was ineffective because of persistent squabbling, Torfi
said that the advantage of the new PC was that it had the
potential to become a more effective decision-making body
because it would be dominated by two political lists that
both answer to the Prime Minister. On the downside, he noted
the PC had the potential to represent only a single interest
group and to ride roughshod over the interests and views of
Qgroup and to ride roughshod over the interests and views of
other local political factions. The council's main agenda,
Torfi said, would be preparing for the 2010 elections. "They
won't concern themselves with getting things done," he
predicted.

The Gadfly
--------------


5. (C) Meanwhile, leading provincial election vote-getter
Yusuf al-Haboubi (who received 37,846 votes, far more than
the 6,860 and 4,854 votes captured by the winning candidates
on the Amal al-Rafidain and Dawlat al-Qanun slates)
disappeared from the political landscape for a month
following the elections, only to emerge four days ago
asserting in the press his right to be governor. (Although
he would have won four seats with his vote total, al-Haboubi
ran on a single-man slate giving him only one seat in the
PC.) Haboubi and his spokesperson have been quoted in the
press several times in recent days saying that Haboubi will
appeal to the courts, and even Grand Ayatollah Sistani, to
correct the injustice he perceives at being denied the

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governorship despite being the leading vote-getter.
(Comment: The PRT does not see that Haboubi has much of a
legal or political case to assert a right to the
governorship. He was previously tipped to join the Dawlat
al-Qanun and Amal al-Rafidain government as head of the
Services Committee, but we expect that Haboubi's antics will
likely now relegate him to the role of a strident, but likely
ineffective, populist back-bencher. End comment.)
BUTENIS