BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has won a resounding victory in provincial elections across Iraq, cashing in on his strongman image while dealing a sharp defeat to outright religious parties, according to preliminary results released Thursday.
Candidates running under al-Maliki’s Enforcement of Law slate won the most seats in nine of 14 provinces, including the most important Shiite Muslim power bases of Baghdad and Basra. In both provinces, the prime minister’s bloc trounced its rival for Shiite dominance, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, by more than 3-to-1 in Saturday’s voting.
The victory was a remarkable turnabout for al-Maliki, who in the past year has repackaged himself as a secular-leaning leader willing to crack down on fellow Shiites as well as Sunni Arab insurgents, and able to stand up to the Bush administration in negotiations over the future of U.S. forces in Iraq.
For Washington, the results represented a positive outcome that could bolster the Obama administration’s case for faster withdrawals.
Like the tortoise who had been dismissed as plodding and weak only to outrun his competitors at the finish line, al-Maliki, once seen as ineffectual, convinced millions of Iraqis that he alone could restore security and sovereignty to the country.
The question now is whether al-Maliki, who critics say is sectarian at heart and who needed U.S. firepower to win battles against Shiite militiamen in Basra and Sadr City last spring, can sustain his burnished image and persuade his defeated rivals to refrain from violence even as his American protectors withdraw.
The same strongman image that endeared him to Iraqis might be his worst enemy as political parties jockey for position ahead of national elections expected in December, said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “He’s got the next 12 months in which everyone will be fighting to take away that power, so al-Maliki will have to redouble his efforts” to hold on to his advantage, Dodge said.
In Washington, administration officials pointedly avoided commenting on the results and on how the outcome might affect U.S. troop plans, which several officials noted remain under review. However, the relatively peaceful election and the clear preference among voters for secular leadership suggest that democracy is taking hold “from the ground up, rather than top down,” said a State Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Still, the official said that before proceeding with troop reductions, the administration will have to consider the general security situation in Iraq, the strength of the country’s military and police forces and the potential threat from neighboring states.
