National Iraqi Alliance
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National Iraqi Alliance

The National Iraqi Alliance (NIA or INA; Arabic: الائتلاف الوطني العراقي, romanizedAl-I’tilāf al-Waṭanī al-‘Irāqī), also known as the Watani List, was an Iraqi electoral coalition that contested the 2010 Iraqi legislative election. The Alliance was mainly composed of Shi'a Islamist parties. The alliance was created by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (the at the time largest Shi'a party) to contest in the January 2005 and December 2005 under the name United Iraqi Alliance (UIA; Arabic: الائتلاف العراقي الموحد, romanizedAl-I’tilāf al-‘Irāqı al-Muwaḥḥad), when it included all Iraq's major Shi'a parties. The United Iraqi Alliance won both those of elections however later fell apart after several major parties (most notably the Sadr Movement) left the alliance due to disputes with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Supreme Council.

The component parties contested the 2009 provincial elections separately but later that year started negotiations to revive the list. In August 2009, they announced the creation of the National Iraqi Alliance for the 2010 parliamentary election, this time without Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, which formed the State of Law Coalition. Later that year the two lists would re-unite again, forming the National Alliance.

The Alliance formed in the lead-up to the January 2005 elections from mainly Shi’ite groups, most importantly the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim headed the list, and Islamic Dawa Party. Other important members included the secular Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmed Chalabi and the independent nuclear physicist Hussain Shahristani. It also included supporters of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr who preferred not to back his National Independent Cadres and Elites party, and a number of independent Sunni representatives. The coalition was widely believed to have been supported by senior Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most widely respected religious figure in Iraq. Although Sistani offered no official endorsement, many in Iraq understood the UIA to be the "Sistani list."

The 22 parties included in the coalition, which was called List 228, were:

Many members of the Alliance had lived in exile in Iran, including Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq's Prime Minister from 2005 to 2006, who led the Islamic Dawa Party. In 1980, thousands of al-Dawa supporters were imprisoned or executed after advocating replacing Saddam Hussein's secular Ba'ath Party government with an Islamic government. The Iranian government supported their efforts and allowed members of Al-Da’wa to seek exile in Iran.

The Alliance received 4.08 million votes (48.1%) in the election, which gave the bloc 140 seats on the 275-seat Council of Representatives of Iraq. The Alliance's nominees included 42 women. The Alliance formed a coalition Iraqi Transitional Government with the Democratic Patriotic Alliance of Kurdistan. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, leader of the Islamic Dawa Party, became the Prime Minister of Iraq and Jalal Talabani of the Kurdistani Alliance became the President of Iraq.

In March 2005, the Iraqi Turkmen Front agreed to join the UIA’s caucus in the National Assembly. In return, Sistani reportedly pledged support for the recognition of Iraqi Turkmen as a national minority.

The Iraqi National Congress left the alliance prior to the December 2005 elections, which also brought the Sadrist Movement more firmly into the Alliance. Al-Sistani also stated that he would not support any party in this election.

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