Contact Admin. Iraq's provincial elections show that the ground is shifting underneath the country's fledgling post-Saddam order. The grip on power exercised by pro-federalist groups - the Kurdish parties and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq ISCI - over the past six years is being loosened by an ad hoc coalition of forces that favour a strengthening of the central state.
Their standard bearer is Nouri al Maliki, the prime minister, whose appointment in resulted from a compromise when neither ISCI nor its Sadrist rivals were able to impose their own as head of government and whose convincing showing in the provincial polls has given the anti-federalists new momentum. Mr Maliki won in part because of a mixture of nationalist rhetoric and military moves that angered the Kurds as much as it pleased many ordinary Arab Iraqis.
With parliamentary elections on the horizon within a year, Mr Maliki's recipe of confronting the federalists will produce further tensions with the Kurds, who have enjoyed a rare period of peace at home and great influence in Baghdad. In the past year Mr Maliki launched a campaign to roll back Kurdish power - constitutional, institutional and territorial.
In August he sent government forces into areas in the Diyala governorate claimed by the Kurds - disputed territories, according to the constitution, many of which contain oil or gas.
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