Friday, February 16, 2007
VP ready to serve as PM
Politics
(AFP) Iraqi vice-president Adil Abdul Mahdi would be ready to serve as prime minister of his violence-scarred country, he said in an interview with BBC World Service radio. Mahdi unsuccessfully ran for the mainly Shiite United Iraqi Alliance's (UIA) nomination to be prime minister of Iraq's first permanent government against Ibrahim Al-Jaafari in 2006, but lost by one vote.
Nuri Al-Maliki was then named UIA candidate and secured the post. According to extracts released in advance, Mahdi told the BBC he had supported both Jaafari and Maliki but "should there be a change in Iraq, I am still there. If the Iraqi parliament sees in me a prime minister, at the proper time, as an alternative, in a constitutional way, in a democratic way, I've served my country, I'll continue serving my country, that's all."
"I am one of the political players on the scene," he said, adding: "I am not a coup d'etat man."
On January 2 this year, Maliki told the Wall Street Journal newspaper in an interview he had not wanted to become prime minister in the first place and did not want to serve a second term in office.
Nuri Al-Maliki was then named UIA candidate and secured the post. According to extracts released in advance, Mahdi told the BBC he had supported both Jaafari and Maliki but "should there be a change in Iraq, I am still there. If the Iraqi parliament sees in me a prime minister, at the proper time, as an alternative, in a constitutional way, in a democratic way, I've served my country, I'll continue serving my country, that's all."
"I am one of the political players on the scene," he said, adding: "I am not a coup d'etat man."
On January 2 this year, Maliki told the Wall Street Journal newspaper in an interview he had not wanted to become prime minister in the first place and did not want to serve a second term in office.
Labels: Adil Abdul Mahdi, al-Maliki, prime minister
