Shia group chooses Jaafari as choice for prime minister

IRAQ: After a week of intensive negotiations, the United Iraqi Alliance, the largest bloc in the new Iraqi parliament, yesterday named Dr Ibrahim Jaafari as its choice for prime minister.

As the Alliance has a 140 majority in the 275 member assembly and can count on the backing of the Kurds, with 75 seats, there is little doubt that Dr Jaafari, a popular figure, will become the country's first elected premier since the 1958 revolu- tion against the British-backed monarchy.

Dr Jaafari had faced competition from inside the alliance from former exile Mr Ahmad Chalabi, once favoured by the Pentagon.

Dr Jaafari is a family doctor who was born in the Shia holy city of Kerbala in 1947. As a youth he joined Iraq's oldest Shia religious party, Dawa, or Islamic Call, founded in 1957 by the Shia clerical establishment in Najaf to counter atheism in the form of the Communist party which had a largely Shia membership.

While Dr Jaafari was studying medicine in the northern city of Mosul, Dawa, a revolutionary movement, challenged the secular Baathist government which also had a substantial Shia membership. Although Dawa does not follow the doctrine of vilayet-i-faqih, rule by jurisprudence, espoused by Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the movement holds that Iraq should rule itself within the parameters set by Islamic law.

In the mid-70s Dawa staged demonstrations against a ban on mass Shia religious processions which often precipitated rioting. Dawa also carried out violent attacks against government installations and officials.

Following the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, Dawa enjoyed the support of Tehran's ruling clerics who were determined to export their ideology to Iraq and the wider Muslim world. The April 1980 attempt by Dawa on the life of Iraq's deputy prime minister, Mr Tareq Aziz, other violent actions and Iranian cross-border shelling precipitated the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict.

During this war, Dawa made at least two attempts on the former President Saddam Hussein, and carried out terrorist attacks in Kuwait and Beirut, as well as in Iraq. Dr Jaafari, like many Dawa members, fled to Iran where he remained until 1989 when he moved to Britain.

Dawa is now dominated by laymen rather than clerics, and is considered more moderate than the faction that remained in Iran.

Dr Jaafari returned to Iraq in 2003 after the fall of the Baathist regime. He was appointed to the Governing Council and became vice-president of the outgoing interim government. Dr Jaafari's wife, also a physician, and five children remain in London because of insecurity in Baghdad.

Dr Jaafari's office and home are located within the heavily- guarded and fortified Green Zone in central Baghdad. He follows the conservative practice of refusing to shake hands with women, and conducts interviews in Arabic although his English is fluent. During an interview with The Irish Times last August, he advocated the imposition of martial law to restore security in the country.

Upon being proclaimed the Alliance nominee for premier, he said the restoration of law and order was his first priority.

He holds that foreign troops should remain in the country as long as they are needed. Since the drafting of a new constitution will be the main task of the government headed by Dr Jaafari, his views on key issues are likely to influence this document.

He favours a federal structure for Iraq in order to accommodate the Kurds who have enjoyed autonomy for the past 14 years.

He holds that "Islam should be the official religion of the country, and one of the main sources of legislation" along with sources which do not contradict Islam. Since the majority of the 11 parties belonging to the Alliance agree with his view, the committee formed to draft the constitution is likely to abrogate the 1958 civil law which gave Iraqi women equal status with men in marriage, divorce, and inheritance and replace it with Islamic law which grants men easy divorce, custody of children, and twice the inheritance of women.

Although Dr Jaafari has also said he favours a constitution that would be a "clear mirror of the composition of the Iraqi people", analysts argue that it is unlikely to be pluralist.

Therefore, women and the formerly influential secular portion of the populace would seem to be the main losers in the new Iraq.