Iraqi PM uses legal maneuvers to hold on to power despite risks of sectarian warfare

[Bumper64]

07:35 AM Mar 31, 2010BAGHDAD (AP) - Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's strategy suggests he is prepared for a long and bitter fight to hold on to power. The Iraqi leader is trying all sorts of legal maneuvers to deny victory to his chief opponent, former prime minister Ayad Allawi, whose secular bloc won the most parliamentary seats in the March 7 elections and presumably the right to try to form a new government.

One potentially explosive issues concerns a committee's attempts to disqualify some winning candidates. Al-Maliki has benefited from its actions; at least four candidates targeted by the committee are from Allawi's party list.

At a satellite news conference from Baghdad with reporters at the State Department, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill declined to speculate on whether al-Maliki or Allawi would be able to form a coalition government.

http://www.todayonline.com/BreakingNews/EDC100331-0000131/Iraqi-PM-uses-legal-maneuvers-to-hold-on-to-power-despite-risks-of-sectarian-warfare

[CaptainJack]

Let's hope the powers that be tell Maliki to build a bridge and get over it. Actions like this are why these countries don't ever get anywhere in the real world.