Enigma Wrapped in Rumor: Maliki’s Hospital Visit

Source: New York Times

BAGHDAD — Flanked by his national security team, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki went on television Sunday night and praised Iraq’s security forces for their work during the recent parliamentary elections.

The appearance also had the effect of proving he was alive.

For days the political grapevine here was rife with rumors that Mr. Maliki, who is fighting for his political life as early returns suggest he may win a plurality of votes but far less than a mandate that would assure an encore as prime minister, had been the victim of an assassination attempt.

“I do not believe that the killing and the bombs can bend the people from their path,” Mr. Maliki said Sunday evening, very much alive, referring to Iraq’s recurrent violence. He did not mention the assassination rumors on television.

In a political culture riven with deep fear and resentment, where the slightest whiff of rumor can metastasize into widespread belief, the vacuum created by the delay in counting the ballots from the March 7 vote has proven fertile ground for conspiracy theories, the most attention-grabbing one being that Mr. Maliki had been shot.

What is known is that Mr. Maliki was hospitalized Wednesday at a Baghdad hospital and apparently underwent a surgical procedure.

But for what? The mystery deepens.

One aide to Mr. Maliki, Ali al-Mosawi, said in an interview that the prime minister had a cyst on his stomach removed. But Hassan al-Sunaid, a leading figure of the Dawa Party, which is part of Mr. Maliki’s State of Law coalition, told the newspaper Al Mashriq that it was actually a cyst on his hand.

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/16/world/middleeast/16maliki.html