Iraq PM Maliki wins majority to form new government, lawmaker says
By Khalid Al-Ansary and Nayla Razzouk
Bloomberg News
Published: May 19, 2014
BAGHDAD, Iraq Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite Muslim coalition won a majority in national elections and will form the next government in OPEC's No. 2 oil producer, according to a lawmaker from the alliance.
The National Alliance, including Maliki's State of Law parliamentary bloc, won more than 170 of parliament's 328 seats in the April 30 balloting, lawmaker Khalid al-Asadi said in a telephone interview. State of Law has chosen Maliki to remain as prime minister in the new government, he said. Final results are to be announced later Monday by the Independent High Electoral Commission.
"The National Alliance has definitely won a majority, more than 170 seats out of parliament's 328 seats, and that allows us to form the next government," al-Asadi said. "We have no intention to change or replace Nouri al-Maliki."
The military reinforced its presence across Baghdad ahead of the announcement, and state-sponsored Iraqiya television reported that motorcycles and carts were banned from the capital's streets as a precautionary measure. Violence has surged in Iraq, and troops from Maliki's Shiite-dominated government are battling fighters from al-Qaida and allied Sunni Muslim forces in the west of the country.
Maliki, 63, is seeking a third term in office in the nation of 33 million people, which he has governed since 2006. The new parliament will choose a president to replace Jalal Talabani, who has been receiving medical treatment in Germany since suffering a stroke in December 2012.
The sectarian violence his government curbed in 2008 has flared again, aggravated by the civil war in neighboring Syria. A total of 3,015 civilians were killed in the first three months of this year, according to the unofficial Iraq Body Count website, more than triple from a year earlier.
Political tussling has also deepened, as Maliki's relations with the Sunnis and the country's ethnic Kurds in the north have become more strained. A dispute with the central government prompted authorities in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region in the north to suspend oil exports through the national pipeline in December 2012.
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Iraq PM Maliki wins majority to form new government, lawmaker says