Election: key to all political alliance – patronage

Sunni Sheikh Hamid al-Hayis (C), head of the armed wing of an alliance of Sunni tribes in the western Anbar province, joins hands with Shiite clerics close to rebel cleirc Moqtada Sar, in the Baghdad Shiite-stronghold of Sadr City, 22 May 2007.


Sheikh Hamid al-Hayis, ambitious middle-aged Sunni has done what some in Anbar consider to be heresy, by joining the Shia religious list of young cleric Ammar Hakim, whose late father led the largest Shia bloc in the Iraqi parliament until his death last year. he is a key Sunni chief and his words are uttered from a base where once they would have been seen as a profanity – Ramadi, the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency.

He is a highly unlikely ally of Hakim's political grouping of mostly Shia theological parties, which is set to once again play a leading role in shaping the almost inevitable coalition that will be formed to lead Iraq after Sunday's vote. And the smattering of Sunni tribal elders who were prepared to discuss the strange political coupling said their leader had been offered the key to all political alliance here – patronage.

"It is not easy to stand in front of us and tell us to vote for a Shia list," said one Anbari man, a 78-year-old from an outer suburb of Ramadi who called himself Abu Bakr. "The only solution is to vote for Hamid al-Hayis as an individual candidate, rather than the list itself." But Iraqi Sunni Islamic Party spokesperson Omar Abdel Sattar said."First of all, al-Hayis is not a sheikh [tribal leader]. Not everyone who is wearing a disdasha and iqal [traditional tribal dress] should be considered a sheikh." He said al-Hayis belongs to a tribe led by Hamid al-Turk.

The 19 million Iraqis eligible to vote on Sunday have, for the first time, a choice to vote for a list made up of numerous parties, or for an individual candidate.