In Euphrates towns, Iraq's Shi'ites weigh choices(looking @Allawi &Sadr)

[maddezmom]

DIWANIYA, Iraq, Dec 4 (Reuters) - In towns and cities along the Euphrates river south of Baghdad, a heartland of Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, there are signs of shifting loyalties ahead of parliamentary elections next week.

The area voted overwhelmingly for the main Shi'ite Islamist bloc in the first post-Saddam Hussein election in January but some opinions are changing as the performance of the Shi'ite bloc in government has come in for widespread criticism.

The main Shi'ite list, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), is still Iraq's most powerful political force, but it may not be so easy to repeat January's success when it took more than half the seats in parliament.

Instead, voters are talking more about Iyad Allawi, a secular Shi'ite who briefly served as interim prime minister, and of Moqtada al-Sadr, an aggressive, Arab nationalist Shi'ite cleric, as they reassess the UIA's Islamist, pro-Iranian bent.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/BAK336597.htm

this could get interesting considering Allawi's commnets about Bremmer.