Jury out in Iraq on PM-designate Maliki

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PRIME Minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki has won mixed reviews on Iraq's streets, being variously described as a strongman who can make tough choices, a divisive sectarian and an unknown living in protected isolation. Such feelings testify to the obstacles Mr Maliki, a tough-talking Shiite tasked by Parliament on Saturday with heading Iraq's new government, will face in building a united country.

"Jawad al-Maliki is the best choice for prime minister because he is a balance between leniency and strength," said Haider Hamoudi, a vegetable seller in the Shiite city of Najaf, where, predictably, support for fellow Shiite Mr Maliki is high. Abdel Hafidh a photographer in religiously mixed Baquba, which has seen many sectarian attacks involving Sunnis and Shiites, took the opposite view on Mr Maliki.

"He is not good. He is a hateful sectarian who has made venomous comments against Iraq and Arabs," he said. "Jawad al-Maliki is the final nail in Iraq's coffin." In the Kurdish city of Arbil, in the mountainous north, some said they had never heard of Mr Maliki, who has vowed to unify Iraq's Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds. "I don't know who Jawad al-Maliki is. Time will prove who he is, whether he is efficient or not, because all politicians when they occupy government posts achieve nothing," said Samir Abdullah, a 25-year-old handyman.

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"I don't think the new prime minister will do much because the previous government's didn't do much" said Imad Qadhom, a shop owner who sells reconstruction machinery. "We are the ones who are suffering from the security dangers. The government sits behind its safe fortified walls

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