Pressure building for Iraqi to resign

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Rival Shiite leaders agreed Sunday to allow Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's party to nominate the next prime minister on the condition that al-Jaafari step down, Iraqi politicians said.

The move could bring the Shiite bloc closer to resolving a nearly two-month impasse over the candidate for prime minister and speed the formation of a new government.

As of Sunday evening, al-Jaafari remained unwilling to resign, but officials in his party were discussing options, Shiite leaders said.

To allow more time for negotiations, the acting speaker of parliament, Adnan Pachachi, canceled a meeting of the 275-member assembly that had been scheduled for today.

In recent weeks, rival factions within the Shiite bloc, which holds 130 seats in parliament, have been jockeying for the prime minister post. The bloc, the largest in parliament, has the right to make a nomination. Al-Jaafari, considered by many to be an ineffectual leader, won the nomination in February by a single vote in a secret ballot among the Shiites. He was backed by the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

But in late February, the main Sunni Arab, Kurdish and secular blocs in parliament said they would not accept al-Jaafari. Since a two-thirds vote of parliament is essentially needed to install the executive branch, the process is at a standstill.

The Shiites have been trying to find another nominee for nearly two months. The candidate who lost to al-Jaafari in the secret ballot, Adel Abdul Mahdi, was considered a front-runner. But it appeared Sunday that Abdul Mahdi would take a vice president position rather than continue fighting for the nomination, said Khalid al-Attiyah, an independent member of the Shiite bloc.

"He's no longer running for the premiership," said Pachachi, the speaker.

Al-Attiyah and Pachachi said the Shiite leaders agreed that al-Jaafari's political group, the Islamic Dawa Party, could nominate a candidate if it withdrew al-Jaafari, but it was unclear whether Dawa officials would be able to persuade al-Jaafari, the party's leader, to step down. Shiite politicians mention two party deputies inside Dawa — Jawad al-Maliki and Ali al-Adeeb — as possible replacements.

Shiite officials have also considered nominating some politicians outside the Dawa Party.

On Sunday afternoon, a suicide car bomb detonated outside the Shemal restaurant in the town of Mahmudiya, killing at least 10 and injuring at least 25, police officials said.