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description=8 posts published by Reidar Visser during December 2010;

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the, in, iraq, for, on, iraqi, parliament, maliki, government, and, gulf, analysis, archive, december, 2010, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, replacement, chaos, iraqiyya, not, such, big, bloc, after, all, abd, al, mahdi, tehran, who, is, paying, this, approves, second, track, towards, forming, next, once, more, washington, puts, cart, before, horse, open, versus, closed, lists, again, supreme, court, rules, against, power, sharing, legislature,

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the (532), and (110), that (89), for (68), iraqi (54), with (53), iraq (53), iraqiyya (44), #government (43), parliament (40), have (33), was (33), are (31), not (31), has (31), from (31), this (29), 2010 (29), #maliki (29), law (28), they (27), their (27), been (27), which (26), deputies (25), but (25), december (24), will (23), some (23), ministers (20), today (20), other (18), national (18), may (18), next (17), parliamentary (17), 2006 (17), his (17), new (17), more (17), power (17), replacement (17), posted (16), were (16), its (15), 2009 (15), minister (15), abd (15), november (14), sharing (14), council (14), 2008 (14), one (14), state (14), now (13), constitutional (13), kurds (13), these (13), 2007 (13), 2013 (13), comments (12), constitution (12), than (12), even (12), would (12), way (12), candidates (12), march (12), deputy (12), 2014 (12), 2011 (12), 2012 (12), about (11), there (11), list (11), only (11), first (11), baghdad (11), august (11), court (10), vice (10), same (10), all (10), far (10), political (10), two (10), party (10), presidency (10), candidate (10), elections (10), instead (10), own (10), mahdi (10), muhammad (10), october (10), january (10), issues (9), president (9), ministries (9), question (9), adopted (9), least (9), seats (9), who (9), given (9), security (9), course (9), february (9), april (9), june (9), july (9), september (9), like (8), already (8), being (8), supreme (8), presidents (8), time (8), should (8), alliance (8), what (8), nujayfi (8), governorate (8), reidar (8), visser (8), system (8), 2005 (8), had (8), rather (8), could (8), oil (8), unity (8), bloc (8), apparently (7), powers (7), just (7), isci (7), shiite (7), within (7), yet (7), sectarian (7), policies (7), very (7), election (7), them (7), those (7), any (7), majority (7), seems (7), three (7), against (7), open (7), compensation (7), many (7), before (7), progress (7), where (7), press (7), fact (7), also (7), get (6), com (6), parties (6), recent (6), 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ms with the way in which both the sadrists and fadila apparently have brought in people from other governorates karbala and dahuk to replace some of their baghdad candidates if true that would be unconstitutional since the principle of 1 deputy per 100 000 iraqis would be in jeopardy in particular one wonders about bringing in jawad ali ghanim with no more than 3 personal votes in dahuk the same problems apply to some of the replacements for unity of iraq and tawafuq which have more recently joined to form a single parliamentary bloc already there have been protests in salahaddin about the way in which jawad al bulani the interior minister and a baghdad candidate for the iraqi constitutional party within unity of iraq was given a replacement seat for ali al sajri of the people s current within unity of iraq in salahaddin governorate the same kind of reactions have materialised regarding salim al jibburi a diyala candidate although it is noteworthy that this replacement is not due to anyone becoming a minister but rather relates to the retirement of usama al tikriti of the iraqi islamic party in salahaddin the first of these cases i e that of bulani not only touches on the governorate balance but also on the perpetual question of the coherence of the parliamentary blocs wasat had just been formed from unity of iraq and tawafuq but here the constituent parts of unity of iraq are quarrelling among themselves posted in iraq parliament membership iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 2 comments iraqiyya not such a big bloc after all posted by reidar visser on tuesday 28 december 2010 20 05 the past couple of days have seen two developments in iraqi politics that haven t quite received the attention that they deserve firstly as at least some of the media has noted the all shiite national alliance na that leads the new maliki government has selected ibrahim al jaafari as leader of its parliamentary bloc many would say it was an obvious choice jaafari was reportedly favoured as premier candidate by both the sadrists and iran before maliki managed to sway those forces behind himself instead at the recent meeting of parliament where the new government was sworn it jaafari held a longish speech that seemed a little out of place at the beginning of the ceremony as if he was screaming for a role beyond that of an ordinary deputy he may now have found it even less noticed is the fact that the nujayfi bloc of iraqiyya also known as iraqiyyun iraqis has elected hasan khalaf al jibburi to head their parliamentary faction of around 10 deputies they sometimes claim as many as 20 this is interesting for several reasons firstly the reason na has gone out of its way to elect a single leader is the fact that it needed to do a merger between maliki s state of law 89 deputies and the sadrists 40 deputies to grow in size and trump the argument by iraqiyya that it was the biggest bloc in parliament as it emerged from the elections with 91 deputies having lost that contest it now appears iraqiyya leaders are happy to revert to their constituent elements and it will be interesting to see whether others hashemi eisawi karbuli mutlak etc will follow nujayfi s lead or stay loyal to ayad allawi a second interesting question is whether the grey zone elements on the margins of the national alliance such as fadila and isci will fall in line with the rest of the shiites or form their own smaller parliamentary blocs on the iraqiyyun pattern regardless of the eventual outcome the idea of a single parliamentary leader as a defining criterion for constituting a parliamentary bloc or kutla seems reaffirmed by these developments posted in iraqi constitutional issues iraqi nationalism 19 comments abd al mahdi in tehran who is paying for this posted by reidar visser on sunday 26 december 2010 14 30 those who prefer to adopt a jubilant narrative on the wonderful successes of iraq in the post 2003 period often dwell at the supposed brilliance of the new free press in the country free it may well be at least to some extent but competent it surely isn t take its collective failure when it comes to detecting some of the serious fraud involved in the illegal multiplication of vice presidents of the country in the past two months when jalal talabani was elected as president on 11 november this year without deputies his two previous deputies adel abd al mahdi of isci and tariq al hashemi of iraqiyya automatically lost their jobs the reason for this is simple the transitional presidency that lasted from 2005 and 2010 and the ordinary presidency are two entirely different political institutions the first was a powerful instrument of consociational democracy that featured significant veto powers the second is an ornamental institution only with largely ceremonial powers and no right to veto anything no vice presidents were elected on 11 november because the law for electing the presidential deputies has yet to be adopted unlike the modalities for electing the president which have been spelt out in the constitution and made it possible to move ahead with the election of talabani even though this too was legally somewhat dubious since no special law for electing him had been passed neither the number nor the powers of the vice presidents not to speak of the method for their election have been hammered out in the constitution a law on the subject is currently snaking its way through parliament with suggestions that there may be three or four deputies to talabani in the next cycle like talabani himself they will play a symbolic role only but as of today the law has yet to be passed despite this situation iraqi media keep referring to adil abd al mahdi and tariq al hashemi as if they were still vice presidents for example in a press release after the recent visit by abd al mahdi to tehran iraqi media covered the event as a visit by an iraqi vice president echoing the tone of the press release from abd al mahdi s own office وقال بيان لمكتب عبد المهدي ان نائب رئيس الجمهورية التقى في طهران امس رئيس جمهورية ايران الاسلامية محمود احمدي نجاد حيث قدم الرئيس الايراني في بداية اللقاء التهاني والتبريكات بمناسبة تشكيل الحكومة العراقية الجديدة معتبرا ذلك خطوة مهمة لتحقيق الامن والاستقرار في العراق والمنطقة عموما of course the fact that his office keeps referring to abd al mahdi in this way may simply be down to sheer hubris among his staff but the failure of the iraqi press to detect the problem is more serious and relates to a fundamental failure in understanding the nature of the political system in the country not least it begs the question of who paid for the trip it may well be that abd al mahdi eventually gets elected as ordinary vice president perhaps already in a few weeks time but right now unless he has taken the oath as an ordinary deputy of parliament he is a private citizen in times of austerity the iraqi electorate has the right to know whether government funds are being used to finance travel activity on the part of non existing vice presidents or not posted in iranian influence in iraq iraqi constitutional issues 26 comments parliament approves the second maliki government posted by reidar visser on tuesday 21 december 2010 15 55 at a recent press conference ala makki of iraqiyya complained that the standard of iraqi students sent on scholarships abroad was not always as good as it should be the problem makki maintained was that the system of quota sharing whereby ethno sectarian groups are allotted percentages of the places available based on their proportion of the population muhasasa meant incompetent students were frequently sent abroad simply in order to fulfil the quota requirements makki s comments are of course eminently relevant also with respect to another process in which his own iraqiyya is taking part these days the enduring iraqi government formation saga with the vote in iraqi parliament today in favour of around 35 ministers that will serve in the next government of prime minister nuri al maliki it seems clear that the goal of satisfying narrow party interests has taken precedence over the idea of creating governance for iraq not only is this an xxl sized and unwieldy government there is even more to come several portfolios including key security ones like defence interior and national security have yet to be apportioned and are held as temporary deputyships by other ministers pending their allocation to individuals highlihting the extent to which this is a collection of party nominees rather than a carefully crafted government team many of the names of the nominees were presented to maliki by the various party leaderships just 24 hours before his publication of the government and with some of the current vacancies being caused by the failure of the various parties to present competent candidates in those cases a place holder deputy has been appointed among the approved ministers sometimes by someone from the same party that had been promised the post that said from the perspective of prime minister nuri al maliki of the all shiite national alliance the process has been handled quite masterfully from a situation where both the kurds and the secular iraqiyya entered the negotiations with ambitious agendas he has managed to create an end game where many from the other parties were forced to abandon their principles or at least saw them consigned to an uncertain future with only the thirst for power in the shape of high government office remaining the robust power sharing arrangements and checks and balances that the united states has been calling for are nowhere to be seen instead there are simply ministers and a whole lot of them signifying the extent to which maliki has managed to turn the tables after months of talk about the need to check his tendency of centralising his own power in the security forces the parliament today voted by a big majority to let him personally take care of the three most important security ministries for the time being as for how the individual players fared in today s appointment the outcome is a mixed one it is logical to start with iraqiyya which was the big winner in the now distant 7 march elections on the one hand iraqiyya has travelled quite far from its original negotiating position they lost the premiership and the future and indeed the coming into existence of the projected national council for strategic policies seems uncertain at this point since it is predicated on consensus on that thorny issue in the iraqi parliament additionally they have signed up to participate in a government which is based on agreements with the kurds that contradict everything iraqiyya stands for in terms of iraqi nationalist policies on the other hand though iraqiyya has also scored some significant victories first it secured the important speakership for usama al nujayfi last november today it was given what is by far the greatest slice of influence in the next government alongside that of maliki s own state of law faction within the national alliance rafi al eisawi has been given the all important ministry of finance and there are other high level appointments for salih al mutlak deputy premier izz al din al dawla agriculture muhammad tamim education abd al karim al samarraie science and technology muhammad allawi communications ahmad al karbuli industry and salah al jibburi minister of state not all of these portfolios are equally important but as a group these ministers will be the only point of gravity that could potentially form a challenge to maliki s own main backers which include jasim muhammad jaafar a turkmen as sports minister muhammad shiya al sudani of maysan as minister for human rights ali al adib as minister for higher education husayn al shahristani as deputy premier ali al dabbagh and safa al din al safi as ministers of state plus a more technocratic but probably still reasonably maliki friendly new oil minister abd al karim luaybi on the other hand the kurds have achieved relatively poor representation with only one hard ministry foreign given to hosyar zibari the other ministries given to them include health commerce women s affairs and according to some accounts civil society some reports said the kurds wanted to press maliki to sign an approval of their famous 19 demands and some reports said they got the coveted signature signature or not the problem for the kurds are likely to be their comparatively minor role in the next government and the fact that most of their demands such as the passage of an oil law is predicated on both consensus within the unwieldy government and action by the iraqi parliament the other assumed kingmaker in this process the sadrists also have seen relatively modest results with just two ministers proper nassar al rubayie for works and planning and muhammad al darraji for housing and development plus one minister of state abd al mahdi al mutayri they are however expected to be remunerated for their backing of maliki through high offices in some of the southern governorates from where some leading daawa people such as muhammad al sudani now join the central government in baghdad instead fadila received even less hasan al shammari at justice and a female minister of state but the truly remarkable development in the shiite camp must be the relative marginality of isci and badr hadi al amiri was reasonably loyal to maliki during the internal rivalry in the national alliance and he has been awarded the transport ministry other than that there is hasan al sari who continues as minister of state for the southern marshlands he is hizbollah in iraq rather than isci though but not much else except possibly one of the less known new ministers of state similarly the smaller sunni oriented parties and the minorities achieved only symbolic representation much as expected what remains is thus a cabinet with a core of state of law plus iraqiyya the big irony is of course that this could have been achieved as a government of a political majority instead of a national unity or partnership government but now these two parties will have to put up with some 20 ministers that are not really needed and who probably would not have managed to start any revolution had they not been included there are already signs that maliki is trying to gradually liberate himself from some of the kingmakers behind his second premiership sadrists kurds but to what extent he will go all the way and make iraqiyya his principal coalition partner in terms of deciding policy is an open question rather than risking an open rupture with the kurds he might instead prefer to pursue the chinese water torture strategy that he has adopted so far procrastination and indecision on matters like oil and kirkuk but at the same time solidifying his own power base as gradually as possible everyone said he would not be able to do that twice and today everyone voted for a government that could in fact enable him to do it fin...