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By Muhsen Hussein, Laith Salman
BAGHDAD, June 1
(Xinhuanet) -- Fourteen months after the toppling of former president Saddam
Hussein by the American-British invasion of Iraq, this occupied country Tuesday
has a president, Ghazi Ageel Al Yawar, head of the tribe of Shummer which is very influential in
the north of
Iraq.
Choosing Yawar as president and Ayad Alawi as prime
minister, as well as announcing the interim government on Tuesday, the UN
delegation and the US-led coalition authority have achieved a major step to
prepare for the power handover on June 30.
Iraq went through
a political crisis in appointing a president in the past days. The Iraqi
Governing Council chose Yawar while Akhdhar Ibrahimi, the UN envoy, and top US
administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer favored IGC member and former foreign minister
Adnan Al Pachachi.
Just ten minutes after it was announced
Tuesday that the coalition authority had chosen Pachachi as Iraq's president,
Pachachi said that he refused the position to leave the way open for
Yawar.
Through this gesture, Pachachi tried to distance
himself from the accusation that he is the candidate of the Americans at a time
when hatred to the US-led occupation is growing.
Local
political analysts said such a drama gave the new president a good reputation
that he was chosen by Iraqis and not by the occupation forces, which is very
important for anyone in this position.
Though most Iraqis
did not pay much attention to whoever take the power in the country after they
felt disappointed at the false promises of retrieving electrical power, security
and improving economy following the war, the way the president was chosen
revived their hope that their countrymen might have a word in administrating the
country.
A feeling of relief prevailed among the citizens on
the Iraqi streets as they hoped that this choice would help in establishing the
stability that was lost since April last year.
Reports from
Mosul, 400 km north of Baghdad and hometown of Yawar, Tikrit, 170 km north of
Baghdad and hometown of Saddam, and Ramadi, the restive governorate western of
Baghdad, showed that there was a feeling of relief for choosing Yawar as
president.
Some of the supporters of the new president hoped
that the choice would affect the resistance operations that are mostly launched
from these areas.
The new president also has the support of
many Iraqi tribes that sought to have an effective role in administrating the
affairs of the country since the toppling of the former
regime.
Choosing Yawar, a Sunni Muslim, as president would
satisfy the Sunnis who had complained that they were neglected in the
distribution of positions in the interim Iraqi Governing Council and the
ministries in the past.
Yawar did not conceal his anger when
it is said that he was chosen for this position only on a sectarian basis,
emphasizing that he is Iraqi and "nothing counts for him but the future of Iraq
and Iraqis."
What helps to consolidate the status of Yawar
to Iraqis is that he is the head of the tribe of Shummer, which includes a lot
of Shiites and Sunnis and has good relations with the
Kurds.
He is also respected by the Kurds and the two main
Kurdish parties, the Democratic Kurdistan Party headed by Massoud Barzani and
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by Jalal Talabani.
Yawar, 46, is a distinguished tribe chief as he received a bachelor's degree in
petroleum engineering in a Saudi Arabia university and a master's degree in
civil engineering in a US
university.
Under the new
Iraqi government system, presidency is a largely ceremonial post while most of
the authorities are given to the prime minister. Enditem
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