Khazali, who is also one of the main leaders of the Coalition Framework, told al-Sharqiya News that Asaib Ahl al-Haq has called for Iraq’s prime minister to be elected by the largest Shia fraction in Iraq’s parliament.
The Coordination Framework, one of the two largest Shia blocs in the Iraqi parliament, is a coalition of Shia parties composed of the Fatah Alliance, the State of Law Coalition, the Hikma Party and the Nasr Alliance.
Khazali said the leader of the Sadrist Movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, has personal issues with the leader of the State of Law Coalition, Nouri al-Maliki, and that Sadr does not want Maliki to be part of the next government.
Sadr’s Sairoon Alliance won 74 seats in the October election last year, far ahead of the other parties at the polls, but the Iran-backed Coordination Framework say their bloc together constitutes 83 seats.
The Saving the Homeland Alliance was announced in March among the Sadrist Movement, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Sunni Muslim al-Siyada Coalition, with the party’s candidate, KDP member Rebar Ahmed as candidate for president of the republic and Muqtada al-Sadr’s cousin, Jaafar al-Sadr as the bloc’s choice for prime minister.
Khazali alleged the Saving the Homeland Alliance was not formed based on common interest but from an external power, without specifying which external power that would be.
Speaking on the October elections, Khazali said the High Electoral Commission failed to run the polls successfully but the Coalition Framework accepted the results for the sake of national security.
Asaib Ahl al-Haq is a powerful paramilitary group and part of the Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi).
A delegation from the Patriotic Union Kurdistan (PUK), led by the party’s Co-President, Bafel Talabani, met with Shia leaders from the Coordination Framework at the home of former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani in Baghdad on Thursday, according to PUKmedia.
Khazali, Maliki and the leader of the Fatah Alliance, Hadi al-Amiri, attended the meeting in the Iraqi capital, where both sides spoke on moving past the political roadblocks in the Iraqi parliament.
Iraq passed the deadline to elect a new president of the republic on April 7, following three failed sessions. MPs from the Coordination Framework and some independent MPs have boycotted the sessions.
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