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description=10 posts published by Reidar Visser during November 2009;

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the, galbraith, and, on, in, constitutional, for, 2009, dno, 2005, distribution, hashemi, veto, disintegration, by, iraq, gulf, analysis, archive, november, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, bremer, speaks, election, law, seen, as, unconstitutional, seat, key, doubt, backfires, parliament, ups, ante, part, ii, football, trouble, maliki, weak, attempt, at, rebuttal, is, contradicted, 2006, was, paid, when, he, sat, sensitive, drafting, sessions, ihec, publishes, of, governorate, compensatory, seats,

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the (970), and (227), that (193), for (128), iraq (92), iraqi (92), with (75), was (73), galbraith (66), this (65), not (58), 2005 (57), which (54), veto (54), has (52), are (47), his (47), seats (45), kurdish (45), have (42), law (42), but (42), from (42), constitutional (41), dno (41), there (41), more (39), #constitution (39), been (38), all (38), #hashemi (38), oil (37), would (37), november (36), will (34), new (34), 2009 (34), also (32), than (31), its (31), parliament (31), kurds (30), 2006 (29), their (29), about (28), election (27), had (27), one (27), what (27), 2004 (26), now (25), some (25), who (25), court (24), 2010 (22), iraqis (22), were (22), government (22), time (22), they (22), own (22), vote (22), quota (21), first (21), posted (20), parliamentary (20), should (20), june (20), since (19), only (19), may (19), after (19), kurdistan (19), between (19), out (18), elections (18), today (18), however (18), bremer (18), comments (17), other (17), total (17), shiite (17), then (17), february (17), contract (17), voters (17), exiled (17), population (16), back (16), way (16), august (16), many (16), over (16), even (16), 2008 (16), can (16), country (15), distribution (15), national (15), federal (15), minority (14), statistics (14), article (14), maliki (14), supreme (14), 2007 (14), issues (13), well (13), such (13), october (13), book (13), because (13), 2013 (13), like (12), under (12), both (12), parties (12), where (12), fact (12), these (12), current (12), baghdad (12), ihec (12), those (12), whole (12), committee (12), much (12), ministry (12), 2014 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), compensatory (11), seems (11), given (11), party (11), kirkuk (11), per (11), peter (11), into (11), krg (11), did (11), football (11), political (11), presidency (11), second (11), alliance (11), december (11), january (11), 000 (10), very (10), governorates (10), governorate (10), reidar (10), visser (10), just (10), case (10), when (10), international (10), council (10), 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know whether its kurdistan contract is constitutional that is simply because the authority for reviewing constitutionality on these matters does not rest with the krg dno or for that matter this blogger there simply is no point in having huge teams of international lawyers pontificating about the constitutionality or otherwise of the dno contract because in any event the final arbiter is going to be someone else either the iraqi federal supreme court in a legal way or the iraqi government in a practical compromise in other words all that is certain is that there is uncertainty here additionally of course there remains the revision clause of the constitution 142 which means that everything in it including the legality of pre 2006 contracts can be struck down during the first round of revisions so far at least the tendency in the constitutional revision committee has been towards greater centralised control of the oil sector in sum then the whole idea of a strictly legalistic approach to the dno contract is of limited value legalism may perhaps appeal to someone like peter galbraith just like bremer who can go back to painting landscapes galbraith can abscond to gubernatorial ambitions in vermont and enter a multi million lawsuit against dno in london around the world there will always be takers for his simple message of ethnic decentralisation as the universal tool for solving political conflict but left with a difficult situation on the ground are first and foremost the iraqis including importantly the kurds and in this case also dno and its shareholders however what the kurds and dno fail to realise is the extent to which the galbraith legacy has created problems and not solutions for them recently however this has clarified a good deal as a consequence of galbraith s public comments subsequent to the first revelation of his business interest in the tawke oilfield last month and in particular through his emphasis of the assumed congruence of his actions for example according to the vermont newspaper rutland herald on 13 november at a recent public meeting galbraith said he had always been supportive of kurdistan s self determination which meant having control over its oil fields and establishing a kurdish oil industry in cruder terms oil contracts such as that entered into with dno could do service as dynamite in a greater vision of kurdish independence something which in turn would be congruent with galbraith s advice and support to the kurds to seek a maximum of regional power in the 2005 constitution as a prelude to independence the problem for the krg and the dno is that because galbraith s prediction in 2006 of the end of iraq failed to materialise they are now left to pick up the pieces after what amounts to an aborted separatist attempt galbraith s whole independence train for the kurds was predicated on an incremental tendency of symmetric territorial and political fragmentation in iraq that just failed to happen in early 2008 that process stopped as iraqi shiites began emphasising their iraqi nationalism and ever since galbraith s commentary and description of iraqi affairs have grown increasingly fictitious and irrelevant so too of course have the separatist policies that he supported and helped shape accordingly instead of taking their cues from galbraith who is now presumably basking in perfect congruence in townshend vermont both the kurds and dno would stand to gain a lot from adjusting their policies to the new realities in baghdad above all this would mean realising that iraqi shiites are not particularly interested in symmetrical federalism for iraq true there are shiite sectarians today just like there were anti shiite bigots during the baath but the irreducible minimum on which all parties south of kurdistan can agree and something which an alarming number of western analysts still just cannot seem to get their head around is a consensus position on iraq as a unified territorial shell today the real tension in the shiite islamist camp is between shiite chauvinists who pay lip service to the idea of iraqi nationalism and shiites who are genuine iraqi nationalists and not so much between centralists and separatists even isci now seems to have given up its federalism ambitions if perhaps somewhat reluctantly and so accordingly shiites will continue to speak in the name of a unified iraq hesitate with regard to the formal enshrinement of sectarian identity in the state structure and stand up for kirkuk as a multi ethnic city attached to the central government in baghdad and so on importantly and particularly relevant in view of the apparent revival of friendship between the kurds and shiite islamist parliamentarians lately even during the heyday of kurdish shiite cooperation back in early 2007 that alliance broke down precisely over the question of the oil law and the kurdish insistence on an exclusive right to sign foreign contracts accordingly in terms of oil policy it makes sense for shiite islamists to focus on boosting production in the supergiant oil fields in the far south where the true potential is as testified to by the international oil giants lining up to sign technical service contracts there rather than making painful concessions related to controversial production sharing deals for the comparatively small fields in the north including those that involve dno when shahristani gets summoned to parliament this should be interpreted as a failure of his tactics in handling the ministry rather than an end to the overall strategy of putting the south first in fact some of his current detractors in parliament such as fadila are even more vehemently opposed than shahristani to the whole concept of production sharing deals with foreigners and independent kurdish decision making on oil in sum while the bremer interview in dn raises many important questions one that is not answered is whether bremer actually had the authority to stop the dno deal if in fact the agreement was entered into during the cpa reign perhaps both the kurds and dno would obtain better results today if they tried to revisit kurdish aims as defined prior to the arrival of galbraith bremer and the whole cpa for example back in 2003 the kurdish draft constitution for iraq actually defined a bi national arab kurdish federation in iraq in which baghdad controlled the oil sector hence instead of hinting about suing baghdad over lost income from oil exports in the summer of 2009 likely to prove a non starter in negotiations with the oil ministry and something that will only increase the anger of iraqis who are already infuriated by galbraith s multiple roles in contributing to the design of both the dno contract and the constitutional framework that governs it at some point in 2010 after the parliamentary elections when a new iraqi government has been formed the krg and dno could try to enter into negotiations with baghdad about converting their current agreement to a service contract more acceptable to the iraqi public a solution that reportedly would still be pretty lucrative for everyone involved and therfore a win win situation many iraqis south of kurdistan are hoping that the new krg government headed by barham salih will prove a lot more moderate than the previous one and that the old scheme of a unified iraq with a special status for kurdistan can once more come to the fore as a sustainable political arrangement conversely in their own visions for iraq both bremer and galbraith ultimately proved themselves to be out of touch with the dominant trends of the country s politics posted in iraq and soft partition iraqi constitutional issues oil in iraq 5 comments the 2005 election law seen as unconstitutional seat distribution key in doubt posted by reidar visser on tuesday 24 november 2009 15 17 western media have largely reacted with apathy and or predictable primordialist interpretations to the recent showdown in the iraqi parliament over the election law according to this view shiites and kurds secured more seats for themselves sunnis complain they do not get many enough to some extent such interpretations are more warranted in this particular case than they have been for a long while in iraqi politics since some of the new tension does indeed follow sectarian lines lost in the debate however is a series of more legally oriented arguments which should be of relevance to any iraqi regardless of sectarian or ethnic background or orientation recently yahya abad mahjub an iraqi islamic party politician of mosul pointed out that tawafuq had earlier complained about the seat distribution used in 2005 to the federal supreme court and that mosul supposedly had been awarded priority in the next distribution of seats whereas the exact details of that legal case remain unclear at least one other skeleton relating to the 2005 law can now be identified in a ruling 15 t 2006 dated 26 april 2007 the iraqi federal supreme court did indeed consider a claim by the tawafuq bloc regarding the constitutionality of the 2005 election law while parts of the claim were dismissed an attempt had been made by tawafuq to also claim that the 2005 election law which predated the constitution was in conflict with the transitional administrative law of 2004 some of it was supported in particular the court appears to have concluded that article 15 of the 2005 election law is indeed in conflict with article 49 of the constitution فأن نص المادة 15 ثانيا من قانون الانتخابات أصبح متعارضا مع نص المادة 49 من الدستور since it bases the distribution of seats on statistics of registered voters and not on the total population in its decision the court says each part has lost and won a little technically the president of the parliament was sued by tawafuq and the tal related bit of the claim was dismissed thus the legitimacy of the existing parliament would not be affected but parliament should prepare a new election law in conformity with the constitution now crucially the amendment passed in the iraqi parliament yesterday could be in conformity with the constitution but the predominant interpretations of it certainly are not a reading of the first paragraph shows that the statistics of the trade ministry are to be used for calculating the 1 100 000 deputy voter ratio per governorate what has already been established by the federal supreme court is that those statistics must relate to total population and not to registered voters but the seat distribution estimates that have generated so much debate in iraq in recent days are based on 2005 figures which in turn relate to registered voters and not to total population in principle they should be useless for calulating new seat quotas that is of course unless there is perfect correlation in all governorates between rates of registered voters and total population whether the language chosen by the drafters of the law in the relevant paragraph is a conscious attempt to avoid censure for a second time by the federal supreme court or whether it is just a case of oversight remains unclear what does seem evident however is that the trade ministry must now produce statistics of the entire population from 2005 and not just refer to registered voters this is important and also offers a hope for compromise since the politicians of mosul have always claimed that the correlation between registered voters and total population in the nineveh governorate was weaker than elsewhere in iraq due to the security situation with more potential voters unregistered of course if the trade ministry and or the ihec chooses to come up with 2005 statistics of the total population that show perfect correlation with the numbers of registered voters then suspicion will come to the fore again but the ministry and the elections commission now have a real possibility for averting a second veto and rescuing the elections as long as they choose to act in a genuinely neutral fashion the other implication of the federal supreme court ruling is that there really is no fallback position in the 2005 law since it has already been declared by the highest court in the country to contradict the constitution so far the legal arguments from the federal supreme court have not received much attention in the iraqi public debate but hopefully they may inform the controversy now expected over a possible second veto posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 18 comments the hashemi veto backfires parliament ups the ante posted by reidar visser on monday 23 november 2009 16 28 khalid shwani kurdistan alliance and bahaa al aaraji sadrist at today s press conference subsequent to the vote salim al jibburi the tawafuq member of the legal committee who had been prominent when the previous amendments were passed on 8 november did not join them in a dangerous development the iraqi parliament has voted 133 against 19 for a new amendment to the election law after the first batch of amendments passed on 8 november was rejected by vice president tariq al hashemi originally around 190 deputies had been present when the parliamentary session started this morning in their first press briefings subsequent to the vote the prime movers behind the second amendment the iraqi national alliance hakim sadr jaafari the state of law alliance maliki and the kurdistani alliance puk kdp have tried to highlight the most palatable aspects of the amendments the idea of linking the exiled vote to specific governorates i e governorates of origin is progressive in that the weight of the exiled vote will be more equal to that of domestic iraqis even if this solution probably means a logistical nightmare for those tasked with organising the vote abroad depending on what exact special procedures are adopted by the iraqi election commission also the ad hoc parliamentary alliance that favoured the amendment tried to highlight minor modifications to the procedures for electing the christian minority seats primarily in the shape of a single electoral constituency thought to be a concession to demands by christian leaders the part of the amendment that is not talked about so much by these parties is the real bargain that lies behind it a reversion to the distribution of parliamentary seats according to the 2005 allocations with an overall 2 8 annual growth rate reckoned across the country this replaces the arrangement adopted on 8 november whereby statistics from the trade ministry would form the basis for a new distribution of seats the new statistics reflect population movements in the period 2005 2009 and in contrast to the figures used in 2005 relate to total population rather than registered voters they had been known to iraqi politicians and the iraqi public prior to the vote on 8 november but were officially confirmed only on 11 november the fact that the trade ministry dominated as it is by loyalists of prime minister nuri al maliki published statistics that showed the str...