BAGHDAD, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Supporters of Iraq's Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and two other powerful Shiite parties will reshuffle their alliance for the December legislative elections.
The three, which had been on the verge of splitting, agreed to field a joint slate, indicating the December balloting too would split along ethnic and sectarian lines.
The alliance will bring together Sadr's supporters, Dawa which is led by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, reports The Washington Post.
Participating in the December elections also will be two main Kurdish parties, and a third bloc announced Wednesday by three Sunni Arab groups, which decided to participate after boycotting the transitional legislature last January, the report said.
U.S. officials and some Iraqi politicians had hoped the December voting would be free of the sectarian and ethnic split seen during the formation of a transitional cabinet earlier this year and during the negotiations on the draft constitution. One Iraqi political science professor said if the current landscape holds up, "the election will be decided purely along sectarian lines and there will have been no progress."
