PM-designate Al-Zaidi: Caretaker for Iraq’s broken system rather than reformer

Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq’s incoming leadership is unlikely to deliver the structural reforms needed to address corruption, armed factions, and economic instability, according to an analysis that portrays Prime Minister-designate Ali Al-Zaidi as a consensus manager rather than a transformative figure.

In a report titled “What Al-Zaidi Will Not Bring to Iraq,” the Gulf International Forum said the replacement of Nouri al-Maliki with Al-Zaidi may appear to outsiders as a political breakthrough, but for many Iraqis it represents another product of what it described as a “dysfunctional political system.”

The report pointed to chronic corruption, armed factions, and the fallout of the US-Israeli war with Iran as among Iraq’s most urgent challenges, arguing that the country needs “a reformer” but is instead receiving “a manager.”

Al-Zaidi lacks an independent political base, party structure, or personal agenda, making him an “ideal consensus candidate” whose nomination reflects the continued erosion of Iraq’s fragile political order, according to the analysis.

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