Coronavirus, oil crisis, American-Iranian showdown … As challenges mount for the Iraqi executive, President Barham Saleh told Adnane Zorfi, a 54-year-old Shiite politician without national scope, on Tuesday March 17, the task of forming a government. His appointment is another attempt to lift Iraq out of the political crisis after Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi resigned in late November 2019 under pressure from the street. Adnane Zorfi has 30 days to form his government and gain the confidence of Parliament.
Born in 1966, this former member of the Islamic Daawa party, who fled to the United States after the crushing of the Shiite uprising by dictator Saddam Hussein in 1991, is seen as a secular figure. Returning to Iraq during the 2003 American invasion, he was appointed governor of the holy city of Nadjaf in 2004 by the civilian administrator of Iraq, the American Paul Bremer. He held this position again between 2009 and 2015. He was elected as a deputy in May 2018 in the Al-Nasr coalition of former Prime Minister Haïder Al-Abadi, considered an ally of the United States.
Ddesignated by default
His chances of succeeding in forming a government are considered as slim as those of his predecessor. Mohammed Taoufiq Allaoui threw in the towel on 1er March, after having failed to rally the Sunni and Kurdish parties, as well as part of the Shiite majority, around a cabinet made up of independents to meet the demands of the demonstrators who have camped in Baghdad and in South Shia since October 2019 Parliamentarians told Reuters that President Saleh appointed Zorfi by default after the failed Shi'ite parties agreed on a name. The Al-Fatih coalition led by pro-Iranian Shiite militias – the second largest force in parliament – has called its designation ""Unconstitutional", and promised to "Do everything to prevent this illegal act".
Adnane Zorfi's supposed proximity to Washington condemns him in the eyes of the pro-Iranian Shiite camp, engaged in a showdown with the Americans. Since the assassination in Baghdad, on January 3, in an American drone strike, of the Iranian general Ghassem Soleimani, the head of the Al-Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, and his lieutenant in Iraq, Abu Mahdi Al-Mohandes , political pressure and attacks are increasing to drive American forces out of Iraq. The next government will have the task of carrying out negotiations on a withdrawal or on the redefinition of the mandate of the foreign troops deployed in 2014 to fight against the Islamic State organization. – more than 6,000, including 5,200 Americans – after a resolution to that effect was passed in Parliament on January 5.
