For Maliki, a difficult road to reelection

Maliki remains the most powerful Shi’ite political leader in the country. But he finds himself politically isolated and regionally estranged, with his foremost selling point, a fragile security on the streets of Iraq, crumbling after a series of attacks on government buildings and iconic Baghdad hotels that has killed more than 400 people since August.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for March 7, the question of whether Maliki can hold on as prime minister will determine what kind of country the US military leaves behind as it reduces its presence this spring.

Maliki remains an inscrutable figure: He began as an obscure politician viewed by many as sectarian, has lately cast himself as a nationalist, and has spawned fears of a return to the kind of authoritarianism that prevailed before the 2003 US-led invasion. Another Maliki term could shepherd Iraq’s democratic experiment forward or could expose it as an aberration amid a much longer history of dictatorial rule.

His allies say there is no other option. It is Maliki, they say, who has brought stability to a country that has had five changes of government in six years.

“Maliki has managed to stay in power not because he is strong or weak but because of the absence of an alternative,’’ said Sami al-Askari, an independent Shi’ite politician close to the prime minister. But even allies say Maliki’s effort to transform his image from a Shi’ite Islamist to an Iraqi nationalist may ultimately defeat him.

Other Shi’ite Islamists worry that he has opened the door to rival powers: Kurds are angered by his challenges to their territorial claims; he failed to woo prominent Sunni Arabs into his political bloc; and Iran, which aided Maliki’s rise to power, feels it has lost control over him.

The legitimacy of the election is the biggest worry for the United States. Concern has grown after a decision by an Iraqi government commission to disqualify more than 500 candidates purportedly adhering to the ideals of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party, the most prominent of whom are Sunni Arabs. A ruling last week by a panel of judges might allow the banned candidates to run, but the initial disqualification has already alienated Sunnis.

Maliki, who has long feared that the Ba’athists could rise again, is in a precarious position. If he pushes to reinstate the candidates, he risks alienating voters who fear the return of the Ba’athists; if he does not, he loses credibility among Sunni Arabs, whom he has tried to woo.

Maliki took office in 2006 as a compromise candidate. As the choice to succeed Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari, he was picked primarily because Shi’ites were torn between the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the once-dominant Shi’ite group that was created in Iran, and the Sadrists, a grass-roots party that represents the Shi’ite poor.

Iran, the Shi’ite parties, and their Kurdish allies thought they could control Maliki, a member of the smaller Dawa party. But two years into his term, he stunned his supporters and crossed sectarian lines.

In 2008, he went to southern Iraq and led a charge against the Shi’ite militants who controlled the port city of Basra, straining relations with the Sadrists.