South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin writes for Al Monitor on Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily’s predictions for next week’s parliamentary elections:
Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily said April 23 that parliamentary elections scheduled next week are unlikely to produce a majority for any one party and that the United States retains considerable influence in Iraq despite the withdrawal two years ago of all American combat troops.
Faily, speaking to Al-Monitor a day after completing the Boston Marathon, said Iraqis have a different “concept of time” than Westerners and suggested that the elections could also help clarify nagging divisions that have undermined Iraqi unity, such as the distribution of oil revenues among Iraqi regions and provinces.