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pm candidate has no right to even enter the discussion of government formation no matter its size the biggest bloc in the iraqi parliament that also has a pm candidate is currently state of law whose candidate of course is nuri al maliki members of this bloc including maliki himself are now explicitly demanding the right to form a government separate from the rest of the putative pan shiite alliance unless a bigger bloc comes up with a candidate before the constitutional timeline for pm nomination expires on 8 august or a few days later if holidays are counted president fuad masum has a constitutional duty to charge maliki with forming his third government regardless of whether he has a realistic chance of reaching an absolute majority when he presents it to parliament for approval or a second attempt by another candidate will be needed whether this second scenario will come into play remains to be seen noteworthy in this respect is the almost sensational amount of presidential discretion that exists in the case the first pm nominee fails the president s job in that case is simply to find a new candidate yes you read that correctly article 76 3 of the iraqi constitution it doesn t say which bloc the second candidate should come from just that it should be a new candidate apart from the general age and education requirements of article 77 there is in other words nothing much to go by in theory then the president s mandate in the potential case of a second pm nomination could be interpreted as using his political skills to select whomever he thinks has the greatest chance of carrying an absolute majority in the iraqi parliament iraqi politicians now have the rest of the eid and the next weekend to contemplate these issues but soon they will have to go beyond the debates about numbers and focus on the premier candidates themselves posted in iraqi constitutional issues 16 comments iraq elects fuad masum as new president posted by reidar visser on thursday 24 july 2014 18 07 there was both irony and symbolism in the air as un secretary general ban ki moon visited iraq today in his address upon arriving ki moon highlighted the importance of the iraqi parliament adhering to constitutional timelines for forming the new government for its part apparently unaware about the visit the iraqi parliament was already in session in order to accommodate ki moon it had to postpone its planned vote on a new president by more than an hour once the voting got underway things went rather faster than expected parliament speaker salim al jibburi announced that a committee had considered more than 100 candidates and made some disqualifications based on formal criteria such as age education and de baathification status he then proceeded to call a vote on several dozen candidates there is a case to be made that the way the election was carried out was illegal this is so because the law on presidency candidates distinctly stipulates that rejected candidates of which there were several have a 3 day right of appeal to the federal supreme court this was not honoured sadly during the procedural discussion prior to the vote iraqi mps wasted their time on political arguments instead of these important legal questions as for the speaker himself maybe it was too much to expect that he should take any interest in putting the law above the interests of big political parties since he himself acquired his seat in the previous parliament in an illegal fashion in 2010 and given that jibburi is a darling of the us embassy it would perhaps be too much to expect them or the un to care about these little details of legality what happened instead was that a first vote was held in which the candidate of the unified kurdish blocs received 175 votes convincing and indicative of the broad political consensus that was also achieved when the new parliament speaker was elected but of short of the 218 absolute majority required for the president in the first vote the second best vote getter was hanan al fatlawi of the bloc of prime minister nuri al maliki who had launched her candidacy in a personal capacity she got 37 votes whereas several other candidates got a handful of votes each no verified statistics are available since the iraq parliament website remains offline following rather unseemly interventions by shiite alliance figures ibrahim al jaafari and baha al aaraji fatlawi was intimidated into withdrawing her candidacy the third best vote getter faiq al sheikh ali also withdrew leaving it to the judge hussein al musawi who also challenged talabani in 2010 to stand against masum in the largely ceremonial second vote since he was absent from parliament he was unable to withdraw of course the optics of all of this represented a miserable rupture with positive tendencies in the direction of more mature non sectarian politics seen in the run up to the presidential vote there was something distinctively impotent over the way presidential candidates gave inspired speeches defending their choice to stand as candidates in a protest against the ethno sectarian spoils system only to withdraw and leave the field open to the candidate largely decided by one of the kurdish parties puk in its closed meetings iraq is now actually ahead of the constitutional timeline for forming its next government but the potentially most problematic task remains agreeing on a prime minister the president has got 14 days to nominate the pm candidate of the largest bloc in parliament and exactly like in 2010 there are questions about the identity of that bloc and its candidate in general much of what has been said publicly about this matter has been futile the opinion of the new parliament speaker has been quoted as has the federal supreme court with claims and counterclaims about its position the truth is it is for the new president to identify the largest bloc and ask its pm candidate to form the next government whereas the pan shiite alliance has declared itself the largest bloc repeatedly there is a case to be made that as long as it does not have an agreed pm candidate it doesn t exist in a way that is interesting to the iraqi government formation and that the state of law bloc of pm maliki whose candidate is maliki is the biggest bloc it is being reported that masum will meet soon with the shiite alliance to clarify these things unless a pm candidate emerges maliki could legitimately complain to the federal supreme court that masum is wasting his time with a non existent political alliance one additional interesting aspect of today s sessions iraqi mps apparently forgot about ueseless vice presidential positions altogether hopeully the pm question will now remain their preoccupation posted in uncategorized comments off on iraq elects fuad masum as new president for the first time in iraq a large field of presidential candidates posted by reidar visser on tuesday 22 july 2014 18 29 following positive developments in the iraqi parliament and the election of a speaker before agreement was reached on other leadership positions it is more difficult to evaluate the posturing for the next constitutional step the election of the largely ceremonial office of president of the iraqi republic for starters one very key source has been missing for days the iraqi parliament website is offline apparently due to a site subscriber or maintenance issue or potentially to do with a hacker attack this prevents insights into the details of the ongoing process of nominations to the presidential post according to the law on candidacies for the iraqi presidency candidates are to submit their credentials within 3 days of the election of the speaker whereupon the speaker has got 3 days to vet them for formal criteria age education de baathification status etc before a 3 day appeals window for any candidate excluded during the initial part of the process with reports about a large field of candidates it is very hard to see how due process can be adhered to if an attempt to elect the president will go ahead on wednesday as press reports suggest the legal adviser of prime minister nuri al maliki tareq harb has suggested that adherence to the timelines of proper vetting and appeal possibilities would take us to august before the president could be voted on by way of contrast though at a presser today the new parliament speaker salim al jibburi nonetheless seemed to indicate that a vote would go ahead which seems legally problematic beyond the legal aspects there are potential procedural and practical problems relating to the election of the next president following the explosion of the number of candidates this year in 2006 jalal talabani was the only candidate in 2010 he was challenged by a judge who presented himself as candidate in protest against the ethno sectarian spoils system this year more than 100 candidates have reportedly registered as a minimum a vote on the president should feature a brief presentation of each candidate meaning the presentation of candidates alone could go on for many many hours and we have not even talked about vice presidents yet of course in general terms the multiplication of presidential candidates seems to be a good thing for iraq s democracy there has been a stark contrast between the official discourse of a contest that is open to all with potential contestants ranging from those who protest the ethno sectarian spoils system to those who think the presidency should go to particular ethnicities and what many believed was the real decision making process a debate about which member of the kurdish puk party should have the job maybe with the president of the kurdish region as supreme arbiter eventually though even the puk came up with more than one candidate as both fuad masum and barham salih registered for potential election in general the greater openness seems to have a liberating effect on iraqi politics if only iraqi politicians can manage to find a way of getting the formalities right for the much larger field of presidential candidates than usual posted in uncategorized 3 comments the iraqi parliament elects its new speakership posted by reidar visser on tuesday 15 july 2014 20 05 claims and counter claims continue to dominate iraqi media concerning the military battle against isis in the north of the country with reports about renewed action around tikrit today but whatever the exact situation may be in tikrit the iraqi parliament in baghdad today scored a very significant victory in the battle against isis the election of a new parliament speakership in accordance with the relevant constitutional provisions the vote today was historical also for reasons beyond the ongoing struggle against isis above all it is the first time in iraq s post 2003 history that iraqi deputies have followed the constitution to the letter and held a separate vote on the parliament speaker and his two deputies previously the speaker vote has been subjected to more far reaching package deals also covering the presidency and the premiership indeed as late as during the first session of the new iraqi parliament just 2 weeks ago sunnis and kurds demanded that the shiites decide on their premier candidate before a vote on the speaker now after considerable pressure from the outside and in particular from the shiite clergy that knot has been disentangled hopefully it will all have positive and liberating side effects for iraq s political process the votes on the new speaker and his two deputies were in themselves interesting although not much is known about voting patterns because of the secrecy paper ballots with which the votes were conducted firstly salim al jibburi originally of the sunni islamist iraqi islamic party from diyala and currently part of a wider sunni alliance headed by usama al nujayfi the former parliament speaker won the speakership itself with an impressive 194 votes far more than the required absolute majority of 165 votes his challenger shuruq al abaji a female mp from a smaller secular bloc got only 19 votes whereas 60 blank or invalid votes seemed to indicate some sort of protest the first deputy vote was more dramatic with ahmed chalabi mounting a surprise internal shiite challenge to the official shiite alliance candidate haydar al abbadi of the maliki list there was also a third candidate faris yusuf juju yet again a secularist abbadi did win the competition with chalabi 149 107 but that was not enough for an absolute majority chalabi then withdrew and abbadi won the second vote with 188 votes though 76 deputies voted blank the second deputy vote was more of an acclamation with the kurdish candidate from the gorran party aram sheikh mohammad gaining 171 votes and with 70 blank votes not all of this is easy to interpret the blank votes seem to have been quite consistently in the range of 60 to 70 deputies though this has not been tied to any particular bloc the bomb represented by the intra shiite chalabi challenge to abbadi may have been an attempt at testing the waters for a forthcoming premier candidacy and his ability to attract votes outside the shia alliance although it has been suggested that it is difficult to compare the abbadi chalabi struggle with a future maliki chalabi struggle because abbadi has more friends than maliki outside his own faction at any rate it was quite impressive for maliki s coalition to gain 149 votes for abbadi in today s heated political atmosphere where the advance of isis has been so marked lately that it could now be hurting maliki more than it is helping him abbadi was nominated as recently as this morning after humam hammudi of isci had been considered the frontrunner for the first deputy speaker post previously perhaps the most important result of today s vote was the leap of faith that iraqi politicians conducted despite wavering to the last minute shiites and kurds voted for the sunni islamist jibburi as speaker without any guarantees regarding the deputy speakers not to speak about the president or the pm this in turn could have positive side effects and hopefully the president will be duly elected in the same manner and with adherence to the constitutional timeline 30 days from the first parliament meeting on 1 july posted in iraq parliamentary elections 2014 16 comments iraq s shiite alliance wavering in the question of the parliament speakership posted by reidar visser on monday 14 july 2014 22 15 the new iraqi parliament met briefly on sunday and failed to make much progress apart from agreeing to meet again on tuesday one interesting aspect of the proceedings that has failed to receive much attention concerns the stance of the pan shiite alliance on the issue of electing a speaker before a comprehensive agreement including the positions of president and prime minister has been reached the iraqi constitution envisages this kind of sequenced and piecemeal approach instead of the package deals that were done in 2006 and 2010 and fo...
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