Ibrahim al-Jaafari

Ibrahim al-Jaafari was Prime Minister of Iraq in the Transnational National Authority, the first, interim Iraqi government elected in 2005. He is a Shi'a, and, at the time of his election, was affiliated with the Islamic Dawa Party. He replaced Iyad Allawi, who had led the prior interim government. In 2008, he was replaced by Nuri al-Maliki, and subsequently expelled from the Dawa when he created his own faction.

Background
Professionally, he is a physician. After a Shi'a revolt in the 1970s, he had gone into exile in Iran in 1980, and then in the UK in 1989.

He is certainly sympathetic to Iran, but not necessarily under their control. While he accepted clerical rule in Iran, he does not appear to want that for Iraq; he is not a cleric himself. He was, however, seen as an Islamist, and backed by clerics.

2005 Election
When he was serving in the mainly ceremonial role of vice-president in the outgoing US-appointed interim regime, a 2004 opinion poll put him Iraq's third most popular politician, after Ali al-Sistani and Moqtada al-Sadr. Ayatollah Sistani, in 2004, had negotiated a cease-fire between al-Sadr and US troops.

Ahmed Chalabi was a rival in the 2005 election.

After the transitional government was elected in 2005, he established a prime position among the new officials. He was the accepted leader among the Shi'a slate in that election, and the three-person presidency council named him as Prime Minister. He was seen as unifying, actively appealing to the Sunni that had boycotted the election, and the Kurds that wanted a degree of autonomy.