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description= 10 posts published by Reidar Visser during October 2011;
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the, and, iraqi, iraq, latest, to, in, of, nujayfi, parliament, gulf, analysis, archive, for, october, 2011, archives, categories, meta, my, book, on, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, christopher, hill, war, legacy, welcome, malikistan, salahaddin, confused, federalism, bid, wave, arrests, baathists, terrorists, are, two, different, things, sadr, demands, resistance, against, us, embassy, baghdad, time, revise, constitution, maliki, parliamentary, seats, iraqiyya, breakaway, factions, uses, word, again, closes, down, paralysis, hits,
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response to a question from one of his followers sadr now says that after the expiration of the sofa the staff of the embassy should be considered occupiers and must be resisted this may well be the single most significant item in all the news stories about iraq this weekend everyone should have known for months if not years that there would be no new sofa and no immunities for us instructors thanks to the failure of the iraqi politicians to create a pro extension coalition and due to the failure of washington to stimulate the formation of such a coalition the projected us mega embassy in baghdad has become the next vulnerable element in american iraq policy posted in us policy in iraq leverage issues 23 comments time to revise the iraqi constitution posted by reidar visser on friday 21 october 2011 20 22 does iraqi really need more problems right now is there not already a complete stalemate on such momentous pieces of legislation as the oil and gas law and the federal supreme court law can parliament realistically be expected to accomplish significant things when it cannot even agree on its own bylaws or indeed on exactly who the members of parliament are against that backdrop the sudden call by members of iraqiyya this week for the appointment of a new parliamentary committee to urgently revise the iraqi constitution from 2005 inevitably comes across as somewhat unrealistic the suggested timeline of three months seems particularly utopian the constitutional aspect of the matter is as follows article 142 of the constitution calls for the establishment of a committee at the beginning of the first parliament i e in 2005 06 that should be representative of the components of the iraqi people and charged with doing a revision of the constitution within four months to be approved by parliament with an absolute majority and subsequently in a popular referendum where it must not be rejected by two thirds of the voters in any three governorates in other words the constitutional revision belongs to the special category of time sensitive issues in the iraqi constitution other such items include the law for the formation of regions whose 6 month deadline was violated by some months but nonetheless did produce an actual piece of legislation in october 2006 and the settlement of kirkuk and other disputed territories issues supposedly before 31 december 2007 but not yet implemented a constitutional revision committee was eventually formed in october 2006 months past the deadline for the completion of its work it did produce some draft changes in 2007 and wrote everything up in 2009 however this was never considered a final package of revisions and was never voted on inevitably the question today is whether the new iraqi parliament can legally form a new constitutional revision committee and if so whether its revisions can be approved under the special rules specified under article 142 of the constitution ordinary constitutional revision under article 126 requires a two thirds parliamentary majority and a popular referendum majority the constitution clearly mentions one committee only but many of the original committee members lost their seats in the march 2010 elections making it quite unrealistic to revive the old committee also if a new committee is indeed formed should it start afresh or continue on the basis of the rather toothless draft of revisions prepared by the previous committee the likely political dynamics of any such new committee is also an open question normally constitutional issues should bring together the shiite islamist state of law alliance of prime minister nuri al maliki and the secular iraqiyya alliance of ayad allawi against the kurds and the shiite islamist islamic supreme council of iraq isci in theory both state of law and iraqiyya are sceptical to the extension of the federal principle to the rest of iraq beyond kurdistan in the way it was enabled in the 2005 constitution when isci and the kurds dominated lately however personal rivalries between allawi and maliki have prompted iraqiyya to take surprising positions on several constitutional questions including supporting the kurdish stance on the oil and gas law if recent trends are anything to go by this could easily turn into a renewed debate about such inventions as the national council for high policies instead of clearing up the existing framework indeed in announcing their desire to reform the constitution politicians of iraqiyya seemed to focus mostly on anti authoritarianism and the dispersal of power which might well pull them closer to the kurds than to maliki on many questions the constitutional mandate for a new committee seems unclear in the extreme whether it could actually arrive at a package of revisions seems doubtful still there are no signs that parliament is able to move forward on other critical issues at this time maybe another revision committee could at least create a new forum with the potential to avoid a mere replication of the frontlines that are having such a destructive impact on most other spheres of iraqi politics at the moment posted in iraqi constitutional issues 6 comments nujayfi maliki and the parliamentary seats of the iraqiyya breakaway factions posted by reidar visser on tuesday 18 october 2011 18 04 the dust has still yet to settle after the recent shrinking of the iraqi government that process and the question of what to do with the sacked ministers is intertwined with the lingering conflict about the validity of the parliamentary membership of several deputies who gained their seats through a messy process of replacement when party members became ministers in the maliki government in december 2010 in august this year the iraqi press widely reported an alleged decision by the consultative assembly of state a somewhat shadowy administrative court to the effect that the sacked ministers could revert to the seats they formerly held in parliament if they so desired more recently this description of the situation has been modified somewhat through the publication of the actual court ruling which is in fact more limited in scope in its ruling 85 dated 16 august 2011 the court says former ministers can return to their seats provided they remain unoccupied shaghir it should be added that the jurisprudence behind the decision seems somewhat delphic most of the points listed have absolutely no relevance to the decision such as the reference to the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches of parliament and the argument that is used to settle the case is somewhat extraordinary there is no law that prevents the sacked ministers from returning to vacant seats وحيث ان لايوجد نص يمنع المستوضح عنه من العودة لشغل مقعده النيابي غير المشغول من عضو آخر to give someone a seat in the assembly simply with the reference to the absence of laws explicitly forbidding such allocations certainly seems somewhat contrived as long as there are very specific constitutional provisions governing the allocation of those seats in theory the sacked ministers are iraqis like everybody else one might even argue that their sacking in late july was implicitly a verdict of incompetency on behalf of the national assembly at any rate in accordance with the ruling one of the ministers of state falih al sari who belongs to the hizbollah in iraq party within the broader isci badr coalition of parties recently got his seat back and was sworn in again as a deputy there had been rumours last winter that he was about to be replaced in parliament by someone else from his party but this apparently never happened accordingly in this case the action by parliament was at least consistent with the ruling by the consultative state assembly most others of the sacked ministers will not become members of parliament either because they were never deputies in the first place or because someone else was given their seat during the first half of 2011 there are however at least two other cases that remain in focus because of inconsistencies in the way parliament and parliament speaker usama al nujayfi in particular has opted to deal with them firstly there is ali al sajri whose replacement in parliament jawad al bulani recently lost his seat based on a court ruling accordingly that seat remains just as vacant as that which was given back to sari and it seems unclear why parliament should have any legal reason not to give it back to him secondly there is the problematic case of jawad al batikh who was recently replaced in parliament by ammar hasan abd ali from iraqiyya that decision by parliament has been challenged by white iraqiyya the breakaway faction from iraqiyya that was formed by batikh and others around the time he was promoted to minister of state in the maliki government they say that subsequent to the split between iraqiyya and white iraqiyya batikh and ammar hasan belong to different blocs like sajri batikh is demanding his seat back it cannot escape notice that both sajri and batikh belong to the secular circles that have opted to remain separate from the rest of iraqiyya they are now complaining that usama al nujayfi the parliamentary speaker from iraqiyya is deliberately preventing them from returning to parliament based on political motives the sudden promotion of ammar hasan to replace batikh in parliament just days before the ruling of the consultative assembly of state is cited as particularly suspicious in this regard given that batikh would have automatically regained his seat had not ammar hasan won it so suddenly in august the seat had remained vacant since march to some extent then this whole matter seems to be about prime minister nuri al maliki relying on the court system to get potential allies back in parliament his adviser tariq harb recently lauded the ruling of the consultative assembly of state whereas nujayfi is trying to oppose these moves by applying the rulings selectively and manipulating the agenda of parliament to this end on the balance one can certainly argue that the decision by the consultative assembly of state to reinstate the members is in itself legally problematic but if nujayfi wants to protest it he should at least do so in a consistent fashion if dirty tricks are used on either side of the divide between the executive and legislative in iraq it will be even more difficult to develop healthy political alternatives to a government increasingly described by its opponents as authoritarian in nature posted in iraq parliament membership iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 6 comments nujayfi uses the f word again posted by reidar visser on saturday 15 october 2011 12 29 in an interview with the bbc during his recent visit to britain parliament speaker and iraqiyya politician usama al nujayfi once more uttered the controversial federalism term nujayfi reportedly said that the sunnis of iraq feel they are being treated as second class citizens and if no improvement takes place many will feel compelled to call for the establishment of geographically based federal regions nujayfi s comments constitute a careful modification of his previous reference to federalism and even partition as a possible option for the sunnis of iraq in the first place instead of indicating the possible establishment of a single sectarian sunni administrative unit nujayfi is foreshadowing calls for multiple federal regions in accordance with the constitutional provisions that enable governorates to transform themselves to standalone federal units or to merge with several governorates to form multi governorate federal regions indeed nujayfi says he favours the establishment of such entities which would mean a departure from the official iraqiyya line which has tended to be sceptical to the establishment of additional federal entities in iraq but at the same time especially more recently surprisingly prepared to extend concessions to the one existing federal entity kurdistan secondly nujayfi this time emphasises sunni commitment to the territorial integrity of the iraqi state as a whole although it should be noted that his whole approach of talking on behalf of the sunnis signifies a political mindset that nonetheless remains focused on sectarian subdivisions still on the whole nujayfi s comments mainly add to the string of examples of federalism used as a threat by elite politicians rather than necessarily reflecting any strong popular commitment to the creation of such entities to some extent this reflects the exasperation of iraqiyya leaders who have been unable to get the concessions they are seeking from prime minister nuri al maliki partly thanks to their own haplessness in this perspective federalism comes across as a tool of opportunistic politicians as also seen in some of the recent calls for federal regions by governorate council members in areas that do not enjoy any genuine tradition for making such demands including wasit unfortunately the overly permissive law on the establishment of federal regions from 2006 enables such opportunism since a mere third of governorate council members can call for a referendum on the creation of a federal region this in turn can lead to useless referendums for initiatives that in reality do not enjoy support anywhere close to the levels needed to win a referendum nonetheless any growth of such calls for federal regions in the sunni majority governorates would create an interesting dilemma at the level of the central government so far maliki has deliberately resisted initiatives for federal referendums initiated by politicians from his own state of law coalition in several governorates south of baghdad and most prominently basra which does have a consistent pro federal tradition dating back to 2003 the main reason he has been able to contain these initiatives and indeed unconstitutionally obstruct them is precisely the fact that they originate from his own partisans a multiplication of similar calls from the sunni majority governorates would be more difficult to resist and in turn could create domino effects in the shiite areas that would altogether threaten maliki s ambition as a nominally nationalist and centralist strongman for iraq at the same time it is interesting that the calls for federalism come at a time with persistent reports about a deepening of the subdivisions within iraqiyya with precisely nujayfi reported as one possible alternative point of gravity to ayad allawi the leader of iraqiyya and his wifaq movement whether the federalism threat is just a negotiating card in a strategy that ultimately aims at negotiations between maliki and parts of iraqiyya remains to be seen posted in basra and southern regionalism iraq regionalism general 17 comments the iraqi parliament closes down posted by reidar visser on tuesday 11 october 2011 12 58 perhaps the most significant development in yesterday s parliament session came towards the end parliament wil...
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