Iraqis go to the polls in April and they definitely want "a better leader than Maliki to steer the country through these troubled times". It might just as well be wishful thinking. Disregarding its outcome, the civil war in Syria would hardly change the reality on the ground. The rhetoric of national unity and anti-sectarian perspective the nationalist plaform that the Al-Iraqiyya (Iraqi National Movement) used to offer is dated. The country is on the verge of disintegration.

The elections in March 2010 did not promote reconciliation between the different ethnic, tribal and religious groups. A Sunni-backed bloc led by Iyad Allawi edged Nouri Maliki's Shia alliance in elections. In October Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah invited the leaders of Iraq's political blocs for talks in Riyadh aimed at breaking the deadlock over forming a new government.

Maliki was picked for a second term as prime minister in November 2010. Yet his autocratic rule had entrenched sectarian divisions, which have been accompanied by much violence over the past few years.

The Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, leader of the Sadr movement, said the Iraqi government must provide better-paid jobs, improve public services - power cuts are a regular feature of life - and tackle corruption. Sadri maintains his wide support among many of Iraq's impoverished Shia Muslims. His supporters demand better living conditions and have an uneasy relationship with Nouri Maliki.

Sadr, who was in self-imposed exile in Iran, has been reasserting himself in Iraqi politics. For him "Iraq’s Shia are Iraqis and Arabs first, and Shia second". As they speak Arabic, their relations withTehran are sometimes ambivalent.





