BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has won a resounding victory in provincial elections across Iraq, cashing in on his strongman image while dealing a sharp defeat to outright religious parties, according to preliminary results released Thursday.
Candidates running under Maliki's Enforcement of Law slate won the most seats in nine of 14 contested provinces, including the Shiite Muslim power bases of Baghdad and Basra.
In both provinces, the prime minister's bloc trounced its longtime rival for Shiite dominance, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC, by margins of more than 3 to 1 in Saturday's voting.
The victory was a remarkable turnabout for Maliki, who in the last year has repackaged himself as a secular-leaning leader willing to crack down on fellow Shiites as well as Sunni Arab insurgents, and able to stand up to the Bush administration in negotiations over the future of American forces in Iraq.
For Washington, the results represented a positive outcome that could undergird the Obama administration's case for faster troop withdrawals.
Like the tortoise who had been dismissed as plodding and weak only to cross the finish line first, Maliki, once seen as ineffectual, convinced millions of Iraqis that he alone could restore security and sovereignty to the country.
The question now is whether Maliki, who critics say is sectarian at heart and who needed U.S. firepower to win battles against Shiite militiamen in Basra and Baghdad's Sadr City last spring, can sustain his burnished image and persuade his defeated rivals to refrain from violence even as his American protectors withdraw.
The same strongman image that endeared him to Iraqis might be his worst enemy as parties jockey for position ahead of national elections expected in December, said Toby Dodge, an Iraq expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
"He's got the next 12 months in which everyone will be fighting to take away that power, so Maliki will have to redouble his efforts" to hold on to his advantage, Dodge said.
With President Obama eager to quickly pull American troops from Iraq and eyeing the peaceful election as a sign that withdrawal could be accelerated, Maliki will find himself in an especially vulnerable spot in the months ahead if losing parties decide to push back against his increased power, analysts say.
