Maliki was nominated on Saturday by the main bloc of Shiite parties in Iraq's parliament, which holds a majority, to become prime minister, effectively guaranteeing him the job.

A central figure in Iraq's politics and its only two-term premier since the US invasion of 2003, the 75-year-old Shiite Arab has over the years managed to appease both Iran and the United States, becoming a powerbroker whose approval is considered indispensable to any governing coalition.

A shrewd politician, Maliki spent nearly a quarter of a century in exile after campaigning against the autocratic rule of Saddam Hussein but returned to Iraq in the wake of the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled the longtime ruler.

Maliki has since steadily increased his power and influence.

Born Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in a predominantly Shiite town south of Baghdad, he joined Islamic Dawa, a Shiite Islamist party opposed to Saddam's rule, while at university.

The dour, bespectacled politician, who has a master's degree in Arabic, fled Iraq in 1979 after the party was banned and its founder Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr executed.

From 1980, he lived in Iran and then Syria, where he edited Dawa's newspaper. In exile, he adopted the nom de guerre Jawad and coordinated cross-border raids from Iran into Iraq.

He returned after the US invasion toppled Saddam and became a member of the de-Baathification commission that barred members of Saddam's Baath party from public office.

The US-authored programme was widely blamed for fuelling the post-invasion insurgency by purging thousands of experienced civil servants who were disproportionately Sunni and had often only joined the party to climb the career ladder.

- Thrust to power -

In 2006, Maliki was named premier, taking office at the height of Iraq's hellish sectarian war that killed thousands of people each month.

He was initially considered politically weak, but Maliki managed to remain in office and, with US military backing, he pursued an offensive against the armed group of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in 2008.

The successful assault won him plaudits across Iraq's communities and helped Maliki build a reputation as a nationalist who had brought Iraq's raging violence under some semblance of control.

Under Maliki, US forces withdrew from the country in late 2011 and oil production steadily increased.

Having been re-elected in 2010 at the head of a national unity government, however, Maliki soon faced near-constant political crises, and the security gains of his first term in office were dramatically reversed.

His critics accused him of hoarding power, particularly within the security forces, and blamed him for the sharp deterioration in Iraq's security.

- Kingmaker -

In the years following the US withdrawal, Maliki repeatedly feuded with the Kurds and Sunni Arabs, Iraq's two main minority groups, prompting charges of discrimination and sectarianism.

Critics blamed him for increased corruption and declining services, as well as a security collapse that culminated in the Islamic State group routing the more numerous and better-armed Iraqi security forces in a 2014 offensive that saw the jihadists seize large areas of the country.

Maliki was accused of having appointed military commanders based on personal loyalty rather than competence, while critics said that under his command the Iraqi military had not carried out necessary training.

In 2015, a parliamentary probe found him and others responsible for jihadists overrunning the city of Mosul, which became IS's main bastion in Iraq.

After the jihadists' success and the collapse of the Iraqi army, major domestic discontent and international pressure combined to force him from office.

Maliki never disappeared from the political scene however and, as leader of the State of Law Coalition, he continued to hold considerable influence, helping to form parliamentary alliances and selecting candidates for key positions.