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description= 5 posts published by Reidar Visser during May 2014;
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the (327), and (66), that (60), #maliki (53), iraq (43), for (41), vote (37), with (34), this (30), iraqi (30), 2014 (27), may (26), 2010 (24), from (24), has (23), elections (23), #personal (23), have (22), than (22), are (19), some (19), state (19), law (19), majority (18), more (17), votes (17), their (17), parliamentary (16), government (16), shiite (16), his (16), though (16), would (16), these (15), kurds (15), can (15), could (14), seats (14), 2012 (14), election (13), will (13), not (13), they (13), 2006 (13), been (13), parliament (13), kurdish (13), april (13), 2008 (13), 2013 (13), which (12), also (12), baghdad (12), there (12), general (12), 2007 (12), 2009 (12), 2011 (12), parties (11), new (11), august (11), other (10), posted (10), political (10), list (10), about (10), all (10), special (10), october (10), december (10), january (10), such (9), without (9), one (9), party (9), lists (9), badr (9), candidates (9), november (9), february (9), march (9), june (9), july 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account log in entries feed comments feed wordpress com my latest book on amazon com from just world books available on amazon com twitter updates tweets by reidarvisser may 2014 m t w t f s s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 apr jun subscribe entries rss comments rss recent posts legality and constitutionality questions in iraq s reform push the federalism dimension in yemen s draft constitution federalism and decentralization in libya s constitutional proposals groundbreaking iraq supreme court ruling on the law on mp replacement after the rise of isis will iraq s shiites secede additional ministers approved for the iraq cabinet the controversial kurdish ministers in the new iraqi cabinet the iraqi parliament fails to approve new security ministers the iraqi parliament approves the abbadi cabinet haydar al abbadi is the new iraq pm candidate maliki the presidency and parliament in the iraq pm nomination battle pm nomination trouble in iraq iraq elects fuad masum as new president for the first time in iraq a large field of presidential candidates the iraqi parliament elects its new speakership archive for may 2014 maliki s kurdish dilemma posted by reidar visser on wednesday 28 may 2014 14 16 a world without usama al nujayfi ayyad allawi ammar al hakim and mutqada al sadr surely that must be one of the most pleasant dreams that could happen in the head of iraq s prime minister nuri al maliki these days in fact given political developments during the weeks since the announcement of the uncertified election result maliki has quite good chances for such a dream to become reality crucially though that dream would have to include a personality maliki probably would have preferred to shut out along with the others masud barzani the president of the kurdish federal region what has happened is as follows in the uncertified election result there were 92 straightforward state of law winners and another 3 state of law affiliated people running on various pan shia lists in the shiite minority provinces in the north subsequently maliki has been formally joined by smaller shiite parties such as solidarity in iraq 1 seat in dhi qar the just state 1 seat professionals and masses 2 seats loyalty to iraq 2 seats in najaf additionally support for maliki from the sadiqun movement affiliated with asaeb ahl al haqq 1 seat is a foregone conclusion since probably no one else wants to have anything to do with that controversial movement that s 102 seats for their part the combined parliamentary strength of the kurds is mostly assessed to be above 60 seats certainly if pro kurdish minority representatives from the north are included accordingly maliki and the kurds are now so close to securing the absolute majority needed to seat a new government 165 seats that it would be very easy for them to secure a few extra mps without having to involve any other big bloc also by virtue of their relatively disciplined parliamentary contingent the kurds are probably in a better position to deliver actual votes to maliki in parliament than any combination of smaller arab dominated parties would be able to all of this is different from 2010 when state of law plus the kurds would have fallen short of 163 votes the absolute majority mark in the 325 member parliament back then this scenario offers a potential negotiation dynamic that is very different from the outcomes that have dominated the discussion thus far i e a political majority government of pro maliki centralists against decentralizers among the kurds isci and nujayfi or a quasi political majority government of maliki and at least one of the big parties nujayfi allawi hakim sadr that would be prepared to join him bilaterally in opposition to the others or an anti maliki coalition along the lines that challenged him in the first part of 2012 or a decision on the next pm inside a reconstituted grand shiite alliance perhaps followed by another oversized partnership government nonetheless despite all the talk about these scenarios and perhaps a revived shiite alliance in particular the only thing that has actually happened on the ground since the election result was announced is that state of law has continued to grow steadily attracting also some parties with more secular leanings that wouldn t fit particularly well in the shiite islamist national alliance at all indeed it is likely that such smaller parties on the sunni side could also be subsumed by the state of law alliance it is noteworthy that despite the strong regional tensions parties favouring dialogue with maliki instead of maximizing the sectarian conflict won multiple seats in key sunni governorates such as anbar indeed it could be argued that the vote for the smaller pro sahwa lists and the secular iraq coalition in anbar altogether 130 000 votes and 6 seats was a vote in favour of rapprochement with maliki if movements like these get included in the next iraqi government the contention frequently seen in western media to the effect that iraqi sunnis lost the elections would lose even more of its limited relevance true the option of maliki s enemies forming some kind of grand coalition against him still exists but with maliki s recent growth they are running out of time once maliki reaches around 125 deputies it will be near mathematically impossible for his adversaries to form a bigger parliamentary bloc without the kurds with trends like these the chances of maliki acting bi laterally instead of multi laterally in the government formation process certainly go up of course the kurds will not sign up to a a third maliki premiership just for the sake of forming a slimmer government like in 2010 they will have specific demands including the general relationship between baghdad and the kurdistan federal region oil policy issues payment for kurdish armed forces as well as disputed areas there are key differences from 2010 though firstly the kurdish demands have grown more radical no longer are questions about the validity of contracts of foreign oil companies most prominent on the agenda the kurds have recently opened up separate pipelines to turkey and want baghdad to approve this move without any interference second the kurds have already seen what happened with lofty promises in the erbil agreement of 2010 which largely remains unimplemented surely they will fashion their demands to maliki in ways that can prevent a repeat of that disappointment this time in practice it will not be too difficult for maliki to reverse much of his anti kurdish political majority rhetoric if he instead can form the new government on the basis of some kind of landmark agreement with the kurds that can lead to satisfaction on both sides the problem though given the increasingly radical nature of the kurdish demands is to find concessions that are in the spirit of the iraqi constitution of 2005 as a union between iraqis rather than practical guidelines for the implementation of a divorce some such potential concessions within the framework of a federal state still exist firstly there are things maliki could offer on disputed internal boundaries that would involve one off concessions to the kurds in some of the less disputed of the disputed territories in the north though without kirkuk and a comprehensive article 140 settlement which is likely to take many years to be implemented even under the rosiest of circumstances second there is the recurrent issue of payment for the kurdish security forces since these forces also serve in domestic and internal roles their payment over the federal budget is not particularly logical still if such an arrangement can serve as glue in the iraqi federation it is far better than deals that would remove the oil sector entirely from baghdad s sphere effectively making kurdistan an independent country but without a suitable legal and constitutional framework thirdly there are the oil contracts with foreign companies operating in kurdistan which baghdad have yet to formally approve it could be argued that one off approval of these contracts could be a suitable concession if an appropriate framework for cooperation for future foreign contracts could be established as part of the compromise all of the above are compromises that would retain the essence of the iraqi constitution of 2005 and would be sellable also to maliki s domestic audience which should not be forgotten after they gave him more than 700 000 personal votes above all though if maliki and the kurds want to cut a separate deal it is important that both sides exercise realism in order that another erbil paper tiger and the concomitant dysfunctional government it produced can be avoided posted in iraq parliamentary elections 2014 kirkuk and disputed territories oil in iraq uncategorized 5 comments the use of the personal vote option in iraq s 30 april 2014 general election posted by reidar visser on tuesday 27 may 2014 1 37 after it was introduced in 2008 the personal vote option has become a success in the iraqi democracy contributing significantly to shaping election results in unpredictable ways often against the wishes of the party leaderships firstly it can be concluded that using the personal vote has become the norm in iraqi elections the numbers in the results clearly suggest a majority of iraqi voters indicate a candidate preference in addition to party preference when they cast their votes just to take one example from the 30 april 2014 general election out of 27 800 sadrist voters in rural muthanna more than 25 900 used the personal vote option in line with high figures reported in previous elections iraqi voters use the personal vote despite the fact that technical modalities of voting still militate against its use voters must take the trouble of remembering the name of their preferred candidate since this is not indicated on the ballot papers in analyzing data about the personal vote it is also important to be alert to its many possible uses these include pure stunts by a small number of senior politicians who feel so secure about their popularity that they deliberately place themselves far down the lists in order to demonstrate their ability to be promoted to the top by the popular vote the most spectacular example in the recent general election is hummam hammudi of isci in baghdad who deliberately put himself at the rock bottom position of the list as candidate 138 only to be gracefully lifted to a seat winning third position through the personal votes of some 10 000 devoted supporters mostly though the personal vote use affects the overall outcomes in ways that reflect real struggles between party leaderships and electorates as to which individuals are the best representatives to send to the iraqi national assembly in baghdad a good way of getting an impression of the degree of internal fighting going on already tested out with respect to the local elections last year is to tabulate the data of some main lists according to their numbers of successful candidates initially placed on winning positions followed by numbers of those promoted to winning seats from non winning positions based on the wishes of the electorate i e personal votes outnumbering those who initially held these lists positions as well as the numbers of women promoted to winning positions because of the female quota technically speaking against the preferences of the electorate though it should be noted that more than 20 female iraqi deputies this time won their seats without help from the quota thanks to strong personal votes here are some examples from the state of law results so that s 27 new mps from state of law alone that hadn t been planned by the party leadership which had placed them far down on the lists the tendency of active use of the personal vote in ways that challenge political elites is less pronounced for the muwatin bloc of ammar al hakim though not non existent after having played a role in the perhaps most spectacular use of the personal vote in 2010 when they used it to promote candidates from their own party to top positions on the iraq national alliance slate the sadrists this time showed less interest in using the personal vote in radical ways to affect the ranking of candidates set by the party leaderships on the other hand the personal vote has been used with considerable impact among other lists including the main sunni and kurdish ones here is the example of the mutahhidun bloc of usama al nujayfi the speaker of the previous parliament that s just 3 blocs and yet we have no less than 44 deputies in the iraqi parliament that probably wouldn t have been there if the party elites had had it their way the tabulations above don t tell the whole story though this is the case especially with respect to the distance travelled by some of the candidates far down on the list who went all the way to the top this time the phenomenon of big climbers was most pronounced in the big cities of baghdad basra and mosul and with some particularly spectacular examples within prime minister nuri al maliki s state of law alliance they include 3 candidates in basra who went from positions 29 30 and 31 to become seat winners and similar impressive climbs from positions 41 45 62 69 73 and 77 in baghdad also muwatin had a candidate who went from 50 to 4 in basra whereas nineveh winners for the mutahhidun list of usama al nujayfi included candidates 24 29 and 53 all in all it is the active use of the personal vote among state of law voters that this time stands out in comparative perspective vis à vis previous elections incidentally data about the personal votes may also be useful in evaluating the independence of ihec there has been some suggestions that the current commission considered more friendly to maliki than the previous one may have been under pressure to manipulate the vote but some of the painful exclusions of maliki favourites following their personal inability to garner enough personal votes tell a different story if ihec was so corrupt as its critics claim it would have been a comparatively easy job to shift internal votes to the advantage of party leadership favourites instead we have seen several state of law deputies lose their jobs due to poor electoral performance including people like ali shallah hassan al sunayd khalid al attiya yasin majid and walid al hilli indeed it can be argued that the personal vote establishes a second tier of accountability in the iraqi elections since both candidates and voters will have more specific interests to guard and will be doubly aware to attempts to manipulate this is important when the elections results are as disputed as they are in iraq hopefully after the expiry of the deadline for legal complaints against the results later this week the iraqi elections commission can soon move forward to certification thereby sealing some of these important expressions of nascent democracy...
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