Adil Abdul-Mahdi

Adil Abdul-Mahdi
عادل عبد المهدي
Minister of Oil
Assumed office
8 September 2014
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi
Preceded by Abdul Karim Luaibi
Vice President of Iraq
In office
7 April 2005  11 July 2011
President Jalal Talabani
Preceded by Rowsch Shaways
Succeeded by Tariq al-Hashimi
Minister of Finance
In office
2 June 2004  6 April 2005
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi
Succeeded by Ali Allawi
Personal details
Born (1942-01-01) January 1, 1942
Baghdad, Iraq
Political party Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (1982-present)[1]
Iraqi Communist Party (1970s)[2]
Religion Shia Islam

Adil Abdul-Mahdi al-Muntafiki (Arabic: عادل عبد المهدي المنتفكي, born January 1, 1942 in Baghdad, Iraq) is an Iraqi Shi'a politician, economist, and was one of the Vice Presidents of Iraq from 2005 to 2011. He was formerly the Finance Minister in the Interim government.

Abdel-Mahdi is a member of the powerful Shi'a party the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC. Long based in neighboring Iran, the group opposed a United States administration while holding close ties with the other U.S.-backed groups that opposed Saddam Hussein, including the Kurds and the Iraqi National Congress.

Background

He is a trained economist who left Iraq in 1969 for exile in France. He worked for French think tanks and edited magazines in French and Arabic. He was educated in France, and is the son of a respected Shiite cleric who was a minister in Iraq's monarchy. He attended high school at Baghdad College, an elite American Jesuit secondary school.

Iraqi Politics

Further information: Government of Iraq from 2006

In the 1970s, Abdul-Mahdi was a leading member of the Iraqi Communist Party. The Party split into two separate factions, the ICP-Central Committee, which was more accommodating of the military governments that had ruled Iraq since 1958, and the ICP-Central Leadership, which rejected all forms of cooperation of what it regarded as anti-progressive regimes, in 1967. Abdul-Mahdi joined the ICP-Central Leadership, and continued being active until it gradually disappeared by the early 1980s. By that time, Abdul-Mahdi adopted Iranian Islamic ideas, eventually merging with the Islamists when Ayatollah Khomeini eradicated the communists and other liberal oppositions groups in Iran. Abdul-Mahdi continued his association with Iran and gradually amalgamated his group within the ICP-Central Leadership with the Iranians, rejecting his Marxist past and devoting all his group's time to propagating Khomeini's ideas in France, where he lived at the time. He eventually was made a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an exiled opposition party and militia that was formed by Iran in Tehran in 1982 but composed exclusively of Iraqi exiles.[3]

In 2006, Abdul-Mahdi, outgoing Vice President in the transitional government, unsuccessfully ran for the United Iraqi Alliance's nomination for Prime Minister against incumbent Ibrahim al-Jaafari. He lost by one vote. He was reportedly considered to be a possibility for Prime Minister once again until Nouri al-Maliki became the UIA nominee. Subsequently, Abdul-Mahdi was re-elected as Vice President of Iraq. He exerted his limited authority in that role by delaying the first meeting of the National Assembly in March. He resigned from his position as vice-president on 31 May 2011.[4]

In December 2006, the Associated Press reported that Abdul-Mahdi could be the next Prime Minister of Iraq if a new multi-sectarian coalition succeeded in toppling the government of Nouri al-Maliki.[5]

In 2009, his bodyguards were involved in a bloody bank robbery in Baghdad. [6]

Assassination attempts

On 26 February 2007, he survived an assassination attempt that killed ten people. He had been targeted two times prior to this latest attack.[7]

References

  1. http://www.aljazeera.net/specialfiles/pages/57626ed8-89fd-41ae-b292-58590c6748dd
  2. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21745-2005Feb13.html
  3. Ismail, Tariq (2008). The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Iraq. Cambridge University Press. p. 239. ISBN 978-0-521-87394-9.
  4. Vice President of Iraq resigns
  5. Hamza Hendawi; Qassim Abdul Zahra (10 December 2006). "Talks Under Way to Replace Iraq PM". The Washington Post (Baghdad). AP. Retrieved 27 December 2012.
  6. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/world/middleeast/03iraq.html?pagewanted=all
  7. Sly, Liz (27 February 2007). "VP survives assassination try in Iraq". Chicago Tribune (Baghdad). Retrieved 27 December 2012.

External links

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Political offices
Preceded by
Coalition Provisional Authority
Finance Minister of Iraq
20042005
Succeeded by
Ali Allawi
Preceded by
Ibrahim Jaafari and Rowsch Shaways
Interim
Vice President of Iraq
Served alongside Ghazi al-Yawer, Tariq al-Hashimi and Khodair al-Khozaei

20052011
Succeeded by
Tariq al-Hashimi and Khodair al-Khozaei
Preceded by
Abdul Karim Luaibi
Energy Minister of Iraq
2014present
Succeeded by
Incumbent
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