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description= 7 posts published by Reidar Visser during May 2011;
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me in iraq a large field of presidential candidates the iraqi parliament elects its new speakership archive for may 2011 a presidency in disarray abd al mahdi resigns three weeks after being appointed as deputy posted by reidar visser on tuesday 31 may 2011 19 03 it seems slightly surrealistic that iraqi politics should still be focused on the institution of the presidency these days since the transitional period outlined in the iraqi constitution came to an end in november 2010 the president jalal talabani of the kurdish alliance holds a mostly ceremonial office whose sole remaining prerogative of any significance is the power to introduce bills to parliament crucially it no longer has any veto right the deputies to the president specified in the constitution as one or more and in a bill passed in january 2011 limited to maximum three have no constitutionally defined powers whatsoever except what is delegated to them from the president s own limited remit full story here posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 4 comments the iraqi spring comes to an end with sadrist demonstrations and another maliki nujayfi quarrel posted by reidar visser on sunday 29 may 2011 19 44 prime minister nuri al maliki created headlines last week when he was quoted by some media sources as having said that the iraqi parliament has no right to legislate recently there has been an angry rebuff from parliamentary speaker usama al nujayfi of iraqiyya who identified legislation as the core task of the parliament some politicians are complaining that relations between the legislature and the executive are deteriorating and the quarrel comes at a time when agreement between maliki and nujayfi remains key to getting the security ministries passed and having an honest debate about the question of the us presence in iraq after 2011 the reason for the misunderstanding is probably that maliki s statement may have been an attempt at paraphrasing ruling 43 by the iraqi federal supreme court of 12 july 2010 in the case leading up to that ruling the previous maliki government had complained about parliament s passage of a law passed by parliament that cut ties between the municipality and public works ministries and the governorates maliki s lawyers furnished a multitude of legal arguments in defence of their case but above all they focused on article 60 of the constitution that article identifies two ways of initiating a legislative project mashru either it must come from the cabinet or it can be presented to parliament by the president on the other hand a proposal muqtarah for a law can be initiated by members or committees in parliament but maliki s lawyer made the case that the two categories project and proposal are two entirely different things and that a proposal must be developed into a project by the executive before it can be considered by the parliament in its ruling back then despite the constitution being far from unequivocal on the issue article 80 speaks about a right for the executive to propose projects thereby fudging the two concepts the federal supreme court basically adopted the arguments of maliki s lawyers word by word and declared as unconstitutional the law that had been challenged by the government it seems pretty obvious that maliki s recent comments must have related to this ruling it does not mean that parliament has no legislative power whatsoever as nujayfi seemed to indicate but rather that legislative projects must be initiated by the executive parliament remains at liberty to make substantial changes to the law projects and has indeed done so in the past for example with the provincial elections law on 22 july 2008 and more recently in changes to the immunities of state officials but according to the current opinion of the federal supreme court each new law must originate as a legislative project from the executive incidentally this is one of the few remaining areas of real presidential power after the removal of the presidential veto in comparative perspective this kind of executive legislature relationship is unusual but not entirely unheard of for example in the european union admittedly a somewhat exotic specimen in the family of democracies and a confederation more than a federation the parliament has no right to initiate a process of legislation since member countries see this as potentially undermining their minority rights also in several presidential systems in latin america the parliamentary initiative is restricted to certain areas of legislation and may for example not include budgetary or military and security affairs iraq may be closer to the eu example since cabinet decisions in iraq require some kind of minimum consensus whereas a strong president in latin america brazil and chile are among the examples can make decisions on his or her own unless the iraqi parliament moves forward on the legislative project of creating a new federal supreme court that can come up with a new constitutional interpretation it will have to live with a situation in which legislation starts with the executive what both executive and legislature need to think about in iraq these days are increasing signs of political mobilisation on the margins of parliament the sadrist demonstrations on thursday variously estimated at between 20 000 and 50 000 participants surpassed any arab spring demonstrations in scale as such they served as a reminder of the possible implosion of the moderate centre in iraq whatever that may exactly mean unless this centre stops bickering over useless details about vice presidents and their prerogatives and most recently rank and starts focusing and acting instead on those big issues in iraqi politics that really count posted in iraqi constitutional issues 11 comments obama and the street vendor of manama posted by reidar visser on sunday 22 may 2011 13 41 unfortunately the sheer eloquence of president barack obama s arab spring speech only served to underline some of the fundamental contradictions in us policy towards the wider middle east region true to form the us president made sure to enliven his remarks by incorporating stories of individual destinies into the more abstract themes of washington s policy towards processes of democratisation in the middle east he mentioned the experiences of protesters in tunisia the street vendor of tunis egypt libya and yemen there was even a reference to damascus there was no such special reference to manama the capital of bahrain it is true that in a later section of his remarks obama did comment on the situation on the island albeit briefly but in that particular case he refrained from sympathising with or personifying the protesters relying instead on boilerplate phrases focused on dialogue not dissimilar from what any us president could have come up with there was even a silly reference to the effect that the bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law as if to legitimise the government discourse that the demonstrators were primarily made up by criminals what a joke the problem in the case of bahrain is that the feeble attempts at dialogue between rulers and ruled always with foreigners with vested interests in the country standing by as onlookers and more or less passively supporting the status quo have been going on for quite some time for example more than a half century ago on 6 march 1935 a british official commented it will not be easy for the al khalifa the ruling family of bahrain to maintain their tribal form of rule but it is in many respects well suited to the island similarly on 14 april 1939 trenchard c fowle in the british residency in bushire discussed the question of political reform in bahrain as follows reform would be most unpopular with the al khalifa family and would make us unpopular with them whereas at present they are extremely loyal and friendly to us the family have already discussed the question amongst themselves and regard the formation of a council as the end of the khalifah rule in bahrain since the bahrain administration is already good and efficient what need is there for a council to sum up the present autocratic government of bahrain suits us very well and any advice from us to the shaikh and his family to change its form for a more democratic one would not be palatable and would tend to make us unpopular with them and unsurprisingly there were hints that pockets of radicalism were unrepresentative perhaps even of foreign origin in a report dated 18 february 1935 a british official carefully pointed out the distinction between country baharina who are decent folk and certain evil townsmen who were trying to lead them astray even more conservative voices reigned in simla in india home of british policy making in the gulf at the time wrote o caroe to the secretary of state for india on 6 november 1935 i am directed to inform you that while the government of india feel that there is much in the administration of bahrain that is susceptible of improvement they consider it desirable to proceed with caution in the matter of giving advice to the shaikh of bahrain in the constitutional as opposed to purely administrative sphere to sum up the goi feel that no representations should be addressed to the shaikh suggesting the introduction of popular institutions of a democratic nature or carrying the implication that the support of government to the ruling family will depend on the degree in which the ruler meets the aspirations of the baharina indigenous shiites that was of course exactly seventy six years ago but the parallels to the way in which the us government is approaching the same ruling family today are quite striking back then the british would typically censure only the worst of the excesses of the al khalifa indeed as late as in the 1950 only the most extraordinary in terms of mistreatment of the gulf population by their arabian rulers would ruffle feathers in british circles as seen in a report from a british diplomat in jeddah dated 5 march 1950 we have noticed at para 14 of the bahrain intel summary for the latter half of january that a bahraini is reported to have been flogged to death at al khobar in saudi arabia not even mentioned by obama for the heinous crime of playing a lute we should like to have any confirmation of details of this which you may possess we are as you know concerned with the administration of saudi justice as it affects british protected persons working here as well as citizens of the uk fast forward to today s situation when obama says shia must never have their mosques destroyed in bahrain and demands that prisoners must be released from jails these are tiny steps forward compared to what is truly required obama juxtaposed his meek call for dialogue in bahrain to the situation in iraq which he appeared to highlight as a shining example of how multi sectarian democracy can work two comments are in order in this respect firstly sectarian conflict in iraq and sectarian conflict in bahrain are two completely different animals sectarian tension in bahrain incorporates an ethnic component that is altogether absent in iraq most shiites of bahrain consider themselves as baharina the indigenous agriculturalist population of bahrain that became subjected to the rule of raiding bedouins from arabia in the eighteenth century as if to underline the overlapping dichotomies of sect myths of origins and ecological patterns of adaption as late as in the 1930s the bahraini ruling family sunni recently settled bedouin would let their camels graze freely around the island including in the gardens of the agriculturalists shiites original baharina even the british got slightly concerned about a complaint of long standing among the baharina that the al khalifa camels eat their crops by way of contrast sunnis and shiites in iraq both see themselves as descendants of the arabian tribes and often try to outbid each other in proving their attachment to arab tribal values true correlations between sectarian identity and myths of descent like those seen in bahrain exist in other gcc countries too but in many cases they are mitigated by a degree of further complexity and subdivision within both sunni and shiite camps since there are often both sunnis and shiites of iranian descent involved as seen for example in kuwait but in bahrain the majority of shiites are also baharina and this adds a special dimension to the conflict second obama seems to overplay the extent to which iraq truly is such a wonderful triumph of democracy in the arab world yes the iraqis have rejected the perils of political violence in favour of a democratic process as obama said incidentally as obama failed to remind us they also rejected vice president joe biden s agenda of comprehensive federalisation of the iraqi state but even the participants in the current unity of government in iraq are beginning to criticize the formula of government that was adopted when maliki was appointed for a second term back in november 2010 44 ministries and three vice presidencies are seen as ridiculous and ineffective in terms of providing services for iraqi citizens and regular security ministers have yet to be appointed due to ongoing bickering between the many members of the oversized government the truth is that in today s iraqi democracy parliamentary politics has lost much of its meaning since almost every decision of significance is arrived at behind close doors outside the parliamentary compound if he is genuinely interested in safeguarding regional stability in the gulf obama ought to go beyond dialogue in bahrain and do a more critical evaluation of multi ethnic democracy in iraq to do that while at the same time making provisions for a post 2011 us presence in iraq and securing a home for the fifth fleet of the us navy somewhere in the gulf can prove to be something of a challenge posted in us policy in iraq leverage issues 26 comments kuwait port project makes waves in iraqi politics posted by reidar visser on thursday 19 may 2011 12 17 with the month long parliamentary holiday well underway iraqi politics has lost some of its momentum despite rumours about imminent emergency sessions a decision on the security ministries still seems some way off meanwhile a decision by the kuwaiti government to press ahead with a project to build a grand new port on the bubyan island to be named mubarak port appears to be what occupies the minds of most iraqi politicians these days since the project entered the public debate a short while ago politicians of all stripes have rushed to condemn it bubyan is the territory marked as kuwait on the above map it is interesting that many protests against the project are not focused on the territorial status of the bubyan island as such despite the fact that iraq claimed ownership of the island for much of the twentieth century and that it featured as one among 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