POWERFUL nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was leading in Iraq's parliamentary election with more than half the votes counted, the electoral commission said, a surprise comeback for a Shi'ite leader who had been sidelined by Iran-backed rivals. Shi'ite militia chief Hadi al-Amiri's bloc, which is backed by Tehran, was in second place, according to the count of more than 95 percent of the votes cast in 10 of Iraq's 18 provinces.
The preliminary results are a setback for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi who, despite entering the election as the apparent frontrunner, appeared to be running third.
Unlike Abadi, a rare ally of both the United States and Iran, Sadr is an enemy of both countries that have wielded influence in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein and ushered the Shi'ite majority to power.
Sadr has led two uprisings against U.S. forces in Iraq and is one of the few Shi'ite leaders to distance himself from Iran.
Poster Comment:
Sadr is a moderate? He despises the US. And the other candidates also despise the US. They could start pushing American bases out of Iraq and cutting the size of our enormous embassy staff which includes a couple thousand spies and assassins.