BAGHDAD, Iraq – Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who emerged Wednesday as the favorite to be the next Iraqi prime minister, is almost certain to bring a stronger Islamic influence into the Iraqi government should he win the post.
Exactly how much Islam influences the constitution and the government could determine whether Iraqis are divided along sectarian lines and whether the United States can realize plans for democracy in Iraq.
Top leaders from the United Iraqi Alliance, the leading Shiite Muslim coalition, continued meeting Wednesday to hash out who would be named their prime minister. A secret ballot in the coming days seemed increasingly likely, with al-Jaafari the almost certain winner.
Al-Jaafari, currently Iraq’s interim vice president, says he wants to build a unified Iraq with equal room for religious and secular leaders. But the party he leads has received support from theocratic Iran in the past and has the ultimate goal of creating an Islamic state, according to Jawad Talib, a top al-Jaafari adviser and a friend since childhood.
“Can Islam be applied now? No. We cannot do it now because the situation is not right for applying Islam,” Talib said. “But that does not mean we do not prefer an Islamic state.”
Al-Jaafari, who leads the Dawa Party, became the leading candidate for prime minister after Adil Abdel Mahdi, of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq party, pulled out of the race. Both are members of the alliance, a slate of Shiite Muslim candidates pulled together at the request of Iraq’s leading Islamic cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The alliance won handily in the election, garnering 48 percent of the vote and winning 140 out of the 275-seat transitional national assembly.
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