Allawi enters Iraq PM race

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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The battle to become Iraq's prime minister heated up on Monday when interim leader Iyad Allawi's coalition formally put him forward as a candidate after last month's historic elections won by a Shi'ite alliance.

Thaer al-Naqib, an Iraq government spokesman, told Reuters the decision on Allawi was clinched when several other parties and coalitions said they would support the interim leader's bid to return to his post.

His entrance into the fray suggests Allawi's backers believe that not everyone is content to let the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shi'ite-led religious coalition that won the election, gaining 140 seats in the assembly, decide who gets the top job.

If the main Shi'ite alliance and the Kurds were to ally, they could grasp a two-thirds majority and decide the top government posts between them. Until Allawi joined the running on Monday, that had appeared the most likely scenario. Adding intrigue to the horse-trading, Allawi, who is a secular Shi'ite, met Jaafari for more than an hour of talks on Monday.

http://tinyurl.com/4zuhu

[ECH1969]

1. I haven't figured out what Allawi is doing

meeting with Jaafari on Monday. They might have made a behind the scenes deal to shut Chalabi and the Kurdish lists out, it is pretty hard to tell.