As a man who always carries a misbaha, or rosary, Ali Al-Zaidi is no doubt acutely conscious of the poise that Iraqi Shia leaders display in public to promote spirituality, esteem, and a sense of public trust.
Yet, the selection of Al-Zaidi by the country’s Shia leadership for the premiership has raised speculation as to whether this business tycoon will be capable of living up to public expectations while serving an oligarchy that is clinging to power and wealth and is backed by strong militias.
Another key question is if this businessman-turned-politician can pursue a balancing act between the United States and Iran, which are entangled in a long power struggle over influence in Iraq.
Iraq’s Shia Coordination Framework, the country’s largest parliamentary bloc, has named Al-Zaidi, a political novice, to form a new government after months of pressure from both the United States and Iran.
Iraqi President Nizar Amedi, whose election last month came after similar lengthy delays and wrangling, endorsed Al-Zaidi’s nomination and tasked him with forming a new government within 30 days as stipulated in the country’s constitution.
Whether Al-Zaidi, who faces considerable domestic and external pressures, will succeed in forming a functioning governing coalition within the constitutional limit that ends on 28 May remains to be seen.
His most daunting challenge will be bringing badly needed change to the beleaguered nation even if that entails confrontation with Iraq’s entrenched ruling elites.
Much will depend on how far the leaders of the country’s political factions can cobble together a coalition of sectarian and ethnic groups to share power and wealth within an oligarchical system created after the fall of former dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.
The system has gripped the country in a state of political paralysis. In all the national elections since Saddam’s ouster, Iraq has witnessed chaotic scenes over the formation of governments, and Iraqis usually greet the ensuing crises with cynicism.
This round, Iraq has been in a prolonged and hectic government-formation process since last December when the country’s supreme court ratified the results of the parliamentary elections the previous month.
With the political chaos created by the system of sectarian and ethnic patronage continuing to grind on against the backdrop of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the government’s makeup this time around is expected to be even more intricate and conflict-prone.
As the fraught process of forming a new government gets underway, suspicions have started to loom over Al-Zaidi’s business portfolio and lack of political experience.
There is intensified scrutiny over the intersection of his new role in government with his personal business ventures that benefit from state resources, with critics alleging conflicts of interest.
As he assumes his new post, Al-Zaidi brings with him broad business relationships and financial entanglements and the possibility that these associations could influence his decision-making in government.
The 40-year-old entrepreneur, born in the impoverished southern province of Dhi Qar, sits at the helm of a sprawling privately held conglomerate that oversees several business entities.
His National Holding Company, established in 2017, has interests spanning banking, supply chains, healthcare, tourism, education, the media, agriculture, real estate, and renewable energy, according to reports quoting the Iraqi Ministry of Trade’s Companies Registration Department.
He built his business empire by transitioning from a small money-exchange business relying on dollar auctions, an Iraqi Central Bank mechanism established in 2003 that provides daily US dollar allocations to banks to finance imports.
Al-Zaidi’s business portfolio now extends to supplying the nearly half-a-million-strong Iraqi army with daily rations and Iraq’s government-run national food basket programme that is worth billions of dollars.
What is most notable in Al-Zaidi’s controversial investment holdings, however, is his ownership of the Al-Janoob Islamic Bank, which has been under US sanctions since 2024 over allegations of money laundering, fraud, and links to Iraqi militias and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
His rapid trajectory into politics has put both Al-Zaidi’s career and the Iraqi oligarchs whose names have been linked to multiple financial scandals over the years into the critical spotlight.
How a young man with no known family wealth could have amassed this fortune so rapidly and now have risen to political power has been a common question in Iraq since Al-Zaidi was nominated.
Within hours of his nomination there was a palpable sense of shock that the leaders of the Shia alliance who have been quarrelling for months over choosing a new prime minister had now placed a political outsider from a business background in the nation’s highest political office.
While Al-Zaidi’s designation was welcomed by the country’s top leadership, the business mogul’s quick rise to power has catalysed widespread public frustration at the country’s ruling elites who have enriched themselves at the expense of the majority of Iraqis.
Iraq has faced political storms over recent years that have underlined the catastrophic ineptitude of the country’s leaders whose names have been tied to some of the worst instances of graft afflicting the country.
In 2019, Iraq was rocked by widespread anti-government protests for more than three months, with the violence and anger steadily escalating and echoing demands for changes to the leadership and an overhaul of the political system.
What began as peaceful marches exploded into the country’s biggest national crisis since Saddam’s ouster, putting the country on the edge of wider conflicts and turmoil.
The protesters were pressing demands for the removal of Iraq’s ruling elites who were empowered by the 2003 US occupation authority, accusing them of misrule, corruption, and mismanagement.
These elites, whose unbridled corruption has been framed as a life-or-death issue for Iraq, have been diagnosed as a kleptocracy that has siphoned off huge amounts from state revenues over much of the past 23 years and hijacked politics and government.
Over these years, these kleptocrats, empowered by the state’s security and other institutions, have made alliances with local militias and foreign networks in banking, business, security, and intelligence to protect their pillaging.
By choosing Al-Zaidi as the country’s new prime minister, the Shia alliance seems to have chosen a less confrontational approach both domestically and internationally, treading a fine line between their agenda of power and wealth and pragmatism.
Yet, the selection is still significant, with all eyes focused on whether it will translate into a landmark breakthrough worthy of celebration after more than two decades of turmoil and government dysfunction.
Al-Zaidi has received a warm welcome from political leaders across the sectarian and ethnic spectrum, whose factions are now expected to join his coalition government after some tough bargaining.
The focus will shift to Al-Zaidi’s ability to maintain the equilibrium between Iran and the United States, both of which increased their pressure on Iraq during their recent standoff in a bid to influence the government-formation process in their favour.
While Washington has insisted that Tehran should abandon its support for its regional “proxies” in any deal to end the war, the Iran-backed militias have joined the conflict by attacking US targets in Iraq and neighbouring countries.
The US-Iran conflict, therefore, has seemingly upended the government-formation process in Iraq, especially the competition between outgoing Prime Minister Mohammad Shia Al-Sudani and former prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki.
In January, US President Donald Trump threatened to withdraw US support for Iraq if Al-Maliki was reinstalled as prime minister.
Other US officials demanded that Iraq form a new government without Iranian influence and arrest militia members who attacked Americans during the Iran war.
On 21 April, Washington suspended Iraqi oil revenues being deposited in the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.
The move, reversed after Al-Zaidi’s designation, could have been devastating for the Iraqi economy because the country depends on dollars from its account at the Federal Reserve for over 90 per cent of its budget.
Amid the deadlock, Iran sent its Iraq middleman, commander of Al-Quds Force General Esmail Qaani, in a previously unannounced visit to Baghdad to try to resolve the government-formation dispute.
But nothing definitive came out of Qaani’s visit, and it took Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi three days to endorse Al-Zaidi’s nomination and reiterate Iran’s commitment to Iraqi sovereignty.
When Al-Zaidi was finally nominated, Trump was quick to call him to voice support for his “great victory”, which he attributed to “our help”. Trump promised “a strong, vibrant, and highly productive relationship” with Al-Zaidi.
On the surface, Al-Zaidi’s designation thus seems to be a win for the US in Iraq. But it is a triumph that was crafted carefully and handed by the Shia alliance and Iran to the US president to celebrate.
The real story of the designation of Al-Zaidi, who has stopped carrying his prayer beads since he was nominated, can be found in Shia taqiyya, or prudence, the practice of concealing one’s faith when facing imminent danger.
Given the history of how the Shia alliance operates in Iraq and its leaders’ close ideological and historical relationship with the Islamic Republic in Iran, the chances that they will bow to Trump’s wishes are slim.
So is the hope that Al-Zaidi will manage to salvage Iraq from the jaws of its own kleptocracy.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 7 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly.
Short link: