Al-Sadr supporters stage 'referendum' on a future prime minister

[FarCenter]

Supporters of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are voting on who they want as premier after March elections made them the largest religious body in the Iraqi government. The poll is expected to give them clout in future talks with other blocs.

AFP - Polls opened in a ballot of Iraq's Sadrists on Friday over who should be the country's leader, while ex-premier Iyad Allawi received a boost after a key Shiite party backed his bloc for government.

A week after results from Iraq's March 7 parliamentary elections were announced, Allawi's Iraqiya bloc and sitting Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law Alliance are battling to be the first to form a government.

The pair, the main candidates for the prime minister post, will both be competing for the backing of supporters of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in the movement's two-day unofficial "referendum."

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None of the four main blocs -- Iraqiya, State of Law, the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) of which the Sadrists are the largest faction, and Kurdistania, comprising the autonomous Kurdish region's two long-dominant blocs -- are close to forming a majority on their own.

At least two of those four are required to reach the 163-seat parliamentary magic number.

Late on Thursday, Allawi received the support of a key Shiite party when its leader pledged it would not join a coalition that did not include Iraqiya.

"We will not participate in a government that does not include Iraqiya," Ammar al-Hakim said in comments posted on the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) website.

"It received many votes in the western regions and in Baghdad, and it is not right to ignore the will of these people, because excluding Iraqiya means excluding these people."

<SNIP>http://www.france24.com/en/20100402-iraq-moqtada-sadr-radical-cleric-shiite-referendum-vote-prime-minister