The Dawa Party: Maliki is still a candidate for prime minister and no alternative has been presented.
The Dawa Party: Maliki is still a candidate for prime minister and no alternative has been presented.
2026-04-19
Shafaq News – Baghdad
The Iraqi Dawa Party confirmed on Sunday that its leader, Nouri al-Maliki, remains the sole candidate for prime minister, while denying that any alternative to him had been put forward.
The party said in a statement received by Shafaq News Agency, “ The framework’s candidate for prime minister is Nouri al-Maliki, and this nomination is still valid, as was officially announced on January 24, and the nomination has not been withdrawn yet.”
He added: “Al-Maliki has not withdrawn his candidacy until this moment, and the decision to withdraw the candidacy rests solely with the framework, as it is the body that nominated him by majority vote, and therefore the withdrawal of the candidacy must be done through the same mechanism by which he was nominated.”
The party denied : “There is no truth to what is being circulated about al-Maliki nominating any alternative to him. There is a clear difference between al-Maliki endorsing the nomination of a specific person from among the names, and him adhering to the nomination of the framework and abiding by it.”
This comes in conjunction with an accusation by a deputy close to the leader of the State of Law Coalition, Nouri al-Maliki, on Saturday evening, that the caretaker Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, had disrupted the coordination framework meeting, confirming what Shafaq News Agency had published regarding the postponement of the meeting at al-Sudani’s request .
MP Othman Al-Shaibani said in a statement received by Shafaq News Agency that what he described as “the one clinging to the second term, along with two of the leaders of the framework, disrupted today’s session to buy time and open the door to foreign interventions that affect the national decision .”
The coordinating framework that includes the ruling Shiite political forces in Iraq failed to hold a “decisive” meeting yesterday, Saturday, at the home of the leader of the Wisdom Movement, Ammar al-Hakim, and it was postponed until next Monday .
These developments come at a time when the government formation process has entered a critical phase, following the election of Nizar Amidi as President of the Republic. This places the largest bloc before a constitutional deadline ending on April 26 to officially present its candidate, amid fears of returning to square one of political deadlock.
shafaq.com
