BAGHDAD — Top Shi’ite politicians failed to reach a consensus yesterday on their nominee for prime minister, shifting the two-man race to a secret ballot and exposing divisions in the winning alliance. In a chilling reminder of challenges facing the winner, a videotape showed a sobbing Italian hostage pleading for her life.
After hours of closed-door meetings, members of the United Iraqi Alliance agreed to hold a secret ballot to choose between Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ahmed Chalabi, most likely tomorrow, said Ali Hashim al-Youshaa, one of the alliance leaders.
The contrast between the two candidates is stark and reveals a division within the clergy-endorsed alliance, made up of 10 major political parties and allied smaller groups.
Mr. al-Jaafari is the leader of the religious and popular Dawa party, which has close ties to Iran and is one of Iraq’s oldest parties. Although Mr. al-Jaafari is a moderate, his party’s platform is conservative.
Mr. Chalabi, who left Iraq as a teen, leads the Iraqi National Congress and had close ties to the Pentagon before falling out of favor last year after accusations that he passed intelligence information to Iran.
A secular Shi’ite, Mr. Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress is an umbrella for groups that include Iraqi exiles, Kurds and Shi’ites. Much of the intelligence his group supplied on Iraq’s purported programs of weapons of mass destruction failed to pan out.
Mr. al-Jaafari was considered the leading contender yesterday, though Mr. Chalabi’s aides said their candidate had enough votes to win.
Both contenders were expected to present their political agendas to alliance members before the secret vote, Mr. al-Youshaa said. The 140 lawmakers who will represent the alliance in the national assembly, plus eight allied lawmakers, will decide who will be prime minister, he said.
In the event they can’t agree, revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani will make the final decision, an aide said on the condition of anonymity.
The U.S. military reported that two American soldiers died in a nonhostile vehicle accident yesterday in the northern Babil province.
In addition, the bodies of eight Iraqis described as collaborators with U.S. forces were found in a desert area north of Baghdad.
The case of the captive Italian journalist took an alarming turn yesterday, with a videotape delivered anonymously to Associated Press Television News showing Giuliana Sgrena speaking in French and Italian as she pleaded for the Italian government to withdraw its troops.
“You must end the occupation; it’s the only way we can get out of this situation,” the 56-year-old journalist for the communist daily Il Manifesto pleaded. There was no indication when the tape was made, and the words “Mujahedeen Without Borders” appeared in digital Arabic script in red on the video. The group was previously unknown.
At one point, Miss Sgrena broke into tears, saying: “Show all the pictures I have taken of the Iraqis, of the children hit by the cluster bombs, of the women. … Help me, help me to demand the withdrawal of the troops, help me spare my life.”
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