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Print edition | Middle East and Africa
Nov 3rd 2018 | BAGHDAD

IRAQIS ARE desperate to reboot their creaking democracy. Nearly every government since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 has proven corrupt, incompetent or dysfunctional. Their new prime minister, Adel Abdul-Mahdi, hardly seems like a change. The 76-year-old former finance and oil minister belongs to the old elite, whose fathers were ministers when Iraq was a pro-British monarchy, and who owe their restoration to America.

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Mr Abdul-Mahdi’s confirmation, five months after a marred election in May, was inauspicious. Parliament’s speaker cut off his reading of the government’s 122-page programme after 45 minutes. MPs rejected eight of his 22 cabinet nominees. The two largest Shia parties are quarrelling over posts. One of the few things Iraq’s politicians agree on is that plum jobs should continue to be handed out by sect.

But Mr Abdul-Mahdi has advantages that other prime ministers did not. Despite the kerfuffle over his cabinet, he has the backing of all the big parties. He also enjoys support from Shia clerics and, remarkably, both America and Iran. He wants to use their backing to end corruption, repair Iraq’s electricity and water grids, and get militias out of the cities.
None of that will be easy, but Mr Abdul-Mahdi will have more money to spend than his predecessors. The government expects a $20bn surplus this year, thanks to higher oil prices. Iraq is also well placed to fill the gap left by Iran in the oil market, as American sanctions bite. Better ties with neighbours could give it more outlets. Saudi Arabia is mulling reopening a pipeline linking Iraq to the Red Sea that it closed in 1990. The new oil minister has plans for a pipeline to the port of Aqaba in Jordan.
Iraq is also less volatile. When his predecessor, Haider al-Abadi, took office in 2014, jihadists were at Baghdad’s gates. Now the capital is calm enough for Mr Abdul-Mahdi to have staged his first cabinet meeting outside the fortified Green Zone. The Kurds are less of a problem. Chastened by a referendum on independence that backfired last year, they praise Mr Abdul-Mahdi as the leader of a united Iraq.
The prime minister has variously been a Baathist, Maoist and Islamist. He has thus been able to court a range of powerful allies. But if he cannot curb corruption or keep the lights on, ordinary Iraqis will see him as just another failure.