December 30, 2011A Moderate Official at Risk in a Fracturing Iraq
Rafe Essawi, is the man in charge of Iraq’s finances, a moderate Sunni doctor who greets his guests and denounces his foes in practiced English. He may also be the next leader to fall as the country’s Shiite prime minister takes aim at perceived rivals and enemies, his fate a litmus test for a country in crisis.
Unlike other Sunni politicians who have drawn fire from the Shiite-led government, Mr. Essawi is known as a conciliatory figure who has built bridges with Kurds, Shiites and Westerners. If the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, takes action against him — he has already tried to relieve Mr. Essawi of his duties — it could open deep new divisions in Iraq’s already tattered sectarian landscape and send a discouraging signal about whether a post-United States Iraq can forge a truly inclusive and representative government.
Speaking in his chandeliered office, Mr. Essawi offered a grim read on his place in a political crisis that has brought Iraq’s power-sharing government to the edge of ruin and raised questions about the Obama administration’s assertion to have produced a stable and self-reliant Iraq. The only solution, he said, was new leadership. “Maliki now wants just to get rid of his partners, to build a dictatorship,” he said. “He wants to consolidate power more and more.”
He added: “Someone else should be prime minister.”
To his supporters, Mr. Essawi, 45, is a capable politician with deep ties to Iraq’s Sunni heartland. To his critics, he is a political operator trying to bring down the government from the inside. His uncertain fate, working inside a government he opposes, offers a view into the bizarre, discordant world of Iraqi politics at a moment of deep upheaval.
Mr. Essawi is one of dozens of politicians from the largely Sunni Iraqiya coalition who have decided to boycott cabinet meetings and sessions of Parliament in protest of what they say is Mr. Maliki’s refusal to share power.
Read Full article @ link
