Altogether these parties won a majority of seats after the 2010 elections but they were not able to form a majority coalition before al-Maliki, head of Iraqiya’s major opposition, the State of Law bloc.
Al-Maliki managed to persuade 159 MPs into his Shiite-Muslim-majority bloc and became Prime Minister. The Iraqiya list – whose head, Allawi, had been Prime Minister previously – disagreed with that move and it took months of negotiations before a new government was finally able to be sworn in, in November 2010.
The negotiations concluded with various power sharing agreements but none of that stopped the wrangling – in part, because some aspects of the power sharing agreements were not implemented. And those ongoing conflicts between the State of Law bloc and Iraqiya have had negative consequences for the latter. In particularly, it has seen the Iraqiya bloc split and members depart. Those departures continue to this day.
The Iraqiya bloc has a lot of problem,” one MP who left, Jama al-Batikh, told NIQASH. “It’s dominated by a handful of leaders while thousands of party members are left on the sidelines, their opinions ignored. The Iraqiya list really has no clear ideology or policies,” complained al-Batikh, who now heads a breakaway group called White Iraqiya. “It opposes the government – yet at the same time, it participates. It makes no sense.”
Al-Batikh was one of the first group of MPs to quit the Iraqiya bloc in March 2011. Eight MPs said they were not happy with the way in which certain Iraqiya members monopolised power at the top and they named their new group White Iraqiya – it’s now mostly known as the White party and is headed by MP Hassan al-Alawi.
Then in April, there were more defections with another five MPs leaving Iraqiya to form a new party they called Free Iraqiya.
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