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Iraq approaches political vacuum after failing to elect new president

2022-02-08T16:23:50.833Z


Parliament opens another call after the main parties boycotted the vote of the head of state The few deputies who attended the plenary session to elect the president of the Republic of Iraq, on Monday in Baghdad. IRAQI PARLIAMENT MEDIA OFFICE (VIA REUTERS) Iraq's parliament failed on Monday to elect a new president of the country within the term set by the constitution. The boycott of the main parties prevented a quorum, opening the door to a dangerous political vacuum. To avoid this, th


The few deputies who attended the plenary session to elect the president of the Republic of Iraq, on Monday in Baghdad. IRAQI PARLIAMENT MEDIA OFFICE (VIA REUTERS)

Iraq's parliament failed on Monday to elect a new president of the country within the term set by the constitution.

The boycott of the main parties prevented a quorum, opening the door to a dangerous political vacuum.

To avoid this, the Assembly has launched a new call for candidates to present themselves as head of state starting this Wednesday.

The candidates now have three days to register their names, although Parliament has not set the date of the new vote.

In fact, it should have taken place within a maximum period of 30 days after the election of the president of the Chamber, which took place on January 9.

Twenty-five candidates were presented to the initial call, including the current president, Barhim Salih, and former Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

What happened is surprising even for the usually tangled Iraqi politics.

"We are not in a constitutional vacuum, but in a state of deliberate violation of constitutional terms and deadlines," tweeted Dlawer Ala'Aldeen, president of the Middle East Research Institute (MERI).

The analyst accuses the leaders of "improvising and inventing rules of the game to accommodate their political agendas."

We are not in a state of Constitutional vacuum.


We are in a state of deliberate & habitual violation of constitutional lines & deadlines.



In the absence of Rule-of-Law, institutional leaders improvise & invent rules of the GAME to suit political agendas.

pic.twitter.com/pRUwh991rn

— Dlawer Ala'Aldeen (@Dlawer) February 8, 2022

The futility of Monday's parliamentary session was sensed since the previous Saturday, when Múqtada al Sadr, the leader of the group that obtained a greater number of deputies in the October elections, asked his own not to go to the chamber.

Although the Sadrists only hold 73 of the 329 seats, they were quickly joined by other allied groups.

Only 58 legislators attended the plenary session.

To elect the head of state, the Constitution requires the presence of two-thirds of the members of the Chamber, with which the procedure was blocked.

The behavior of Al Sadr, a populist Shiite cleric with statesman ambitions, is due to disagreements with other parties over the formation of the new government.

It is partly an intra-Shia struggle.

The groups of the pro-Iranian bloc that the Sadrists outperformed in the elections do not fit in with staying out of the government.

However, the other Iraqi communities are not exempt from responsibility in the scuffle.

Under the system of government agreed upon after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqis agreed that the chief executive would be a member of the Shia Arab majority;

the Speaker of Parliament, a Sunni Arab;

and the head of state, a Kurd.

However, the Kurds have been unable to agree on their candidate for the presidency of the Republic.

Until now, a pact between the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK) established that the former held the head of state and the latter led the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan.

But in last year's elections, the PDK swept the PUK and gave it wings to bet on Zebari against the re-election of Salih who supports his rival.

Sadrist sources have said that his group's boycott of the presidential vote was "a message to the Kurds, and in particular the PDK, to agree on a single candidate."

The process was further complicated on Sunday, when the Supreme Court temporarily suspended Zebari's candidacy in response to a complaint from several deputies.

The plaintiffs argue that his aspiration is unconstitutional due to the accusations of corruption that led to his dismissal as Finance Minister in 2016. Zebari, who has always denied having engaged in bad practices, has accepted the judge's decision.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-02-08

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