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description=7 posts published by Reidar Visser during March 2011;

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nister and with iraqiyya apparently fighting among themselves about who should be the new defence minister after khalid al ubaydi reportedly pro nujayfi was recently dismissed as their candidate and replaced with others fasih al ani and hikmat al jahishi today an agenda for this week s last parliamentary meeting thursday was published once more it fails to include any mention of security ministries if things continue to drag on like this maliki may well end up in a situation where developments in the governorates could ultimately create greater challenges for him at the national level postscript in a breaking news update out of baghdad tonight isci s adil abd al mahdi says he is no longer a candidate for vice president this could further affect the overall political dynamics sketched out above in particular it will be interesting to see how the main candidate to another of the vice presidential positions tariq al hashemi of iraqiyya reacts posted in iraqi constitutional issues uia dynamics 10 comments still no security ministers parliament goes on holiday in solidarity with bahraini demonstrators posted by reidar visser on thursday 17 march 2011 13 42 it was all utterly predictable a reuters journalist wanted to get an eye catching headline and a new angle on the conflict in bahrain and no surprise he managed to find one bahrain showdown divides iraqis on sectarian lines all he then needed was a single iraqi sunni who could present a dissenting voice to the shiite parties which have been loud in expressing solidarity with the bahraini demonstrators unsurprisingly he succeeded in that respect too his victim was one ahmad yunis described as a sunni lawyer who thought he saw an iranian hand in the bahraini uprising if we look at the critical situation in bahrain we would be too naive if we ignored the iranian fingers having a gulf country ruled by a shiite majority would make iran more proud than having the atomic bomb and voila reuters had its story and the idea that sectarian conflict might re erupt in iraq because of bahrain could find a receptive mainstream media audience worldwide today the iraqi parliament presented a far more nuanced take on the situation in bahrain true many of the speeches in support of the bahraini demonstrators were given by shiite islamists as could perhaps have been predicted but there were other dimensions too kurdish and christian deputies added their support for the bahraini opposition a gathering of female deputies seconded a motion to protest against the highhandedness of the bahraini authorities salman al jamili a sunni from the iraqiyya list expressed sympathy with the mostly but not exclusively shiite demonstrators who in his view had been marginalised by the sunni regime and ultimately it was the sunni speaker of parliament also from the iraqiyya bloc usama al nujayfi who cancelled the rest of today s session in protest against what the sunni regime in bahrain is doing he called the bahraini uprising a popular movement and also condemned interference in bahrain which in the current situation can only mean the saudis and other gcc states nujayfi s action should give pause to those who want to reduce him to some kind of saudi marionette at least from that point of view his action today was a positive one as it once more showed that iraqi sunnis are far ahead of most other sunnis in the regions in terms of building relationships of trust with its fellow shiite compatriots and in recognising true popular movements whatever their sectarian make up incidentally relations between the sunni arabs and the kurds also took a step forward today parliament formally issued a decision condemning as genocide the halabja massacre in 1988 during the closing phase of the iran iraq war what was perhaps less positive about the whole affair was the fact that the parliamentary recess had after all been anticipated anyway because of the kurdish new year celebrations this weekend i e following the persian calendar it should be remembered that since it began a new session last summer after the 7 march 2010 elections parliament has in fact only been able to issue two laws i e the budget and a law on the deputies of the president it has been unable to actually elect those deputies additionally the whole affair provided yet another excuse for postponing the parliamentary confirmation of new security ministers which appeared to have gathered some momentum this week only to be absent from the agenda when parliament convened this morning parliament is now on vacation until 27 march prime minister nuri al maliki will remain acting minister for defence and the interior who would have thought that one year after the declaration of the final election results and his defeat at the ballot box in late march 2010 he should be able to demonstrate such remarkable staying power posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election sectarian master narrative 45 comments tamimi s challenge and why it will go nowhere posted by reidar visser on monday 14 march 2011 17 48 ismail alwan al tamimi a lawyer from wasit governorate has mounted a legal challenge before the federal supreme court in which he accuses prime minister nuri al maliki and speaker of parliament usama al nujayfi for unconstitutionally appointing three deputy prime ministers salih al mutlak hussein al shahristani and rosch shways apart from its intrinsic interest as a case of a tentative constitutional challenge to the much criticised practice of ethno sectarian quotas in iraq s post 2003 political culture the move will also draw some attention for the fact that tamimi was also involved in a past challenge in 2010 against the then temporary speaker of parliament fuad masum of the kurdistan alliance for prolonging the first session of the parliament indefinitely and thereby postpone the political process a matter where the federal supreme court actually sided with those who challenged the temporary speaker additionally tamimi works for the embattled governor of kut wasit a governorate dominated politically by maliki s own state of law alliance alas tamimi s challenge is a complete waste of time his argument is that the constitutional enumeration of two vice premiers belongs to the section of the constitution that related to the now bygone transitional period of 2005 2010 that in itself is of course correct but the more important point is this there is nothing constitutional that prevents maliki from appointing any number of vice premiers if he thinks that is politically advisable he can have one three or for that matter ten briefly the constitution says nothing about the number of ministers and only political wisdom will limit the imagination in this regard some will of course say that this limit has already been overstepped but the point is that maliki can constitutionally appoint ministers for the moon and the sun if he so desires and then add deputies what this all boils down to is that it is political not a constitutional question and if the prime minister wants to appoint a ludicrous number of placemen then it is his prerogative to do so and it is the role of the parliament not the federal supreme court to pass its verdict truly judicial issues that remain connected to the formation of the second maliki government are firstly a number of unconstitutional replacements of deputies who went on to become ministers and secondly the unconstitutional use of past members of the presidency council adel abd al mahdi and tareq al hashemi in a new role as temporary vice presidents for the ordinary president without any parliamentary approval talabani says he has issued an order for them to stay in their jobs but he has no constitutional authority to do so and in any case the deputy of the president and the deputy of the president in the presidential council are two completely different jobs that have no relationship to each other it should be added that within the cluster of cases relating to replacement deputies one can make a similar sub typology to distinguish between cases that are truly within the judicial and constitutional sphere which relate mainly to changing the governorate of a deputy during the replacement and those that are not strictly speaking against the law on replacement of candidate but instead relate to the number of votes obtained by a candidate under the open list system the latter cannot be challenged before the federal supreme court even though some of these cases clearly do involve deputies who received a miniscule number of personal votes and as such constitute an insult to the iraqi electorate if nothing else in any case even if this second group of truly judicial constitutional cases may offer a more promising avenue for criticising the seemingly endemic cronyism of iraq s new political system it is unclear whether the federal supreme court would be up to the challenge of tackling any such cases in a mature fashion indeed in the case of the deputy replacements it is unclear who has the right to mount a challenge within thirty days of the parliamentary ruling on the issue the constitution just establishes in article 52 that such a right at least exists so far at least despite growing popular unrest across the country there are worringly few signs that the iraqi political elite is beginning to realise that the protests are not only about local councils and governors but also about the way politicians perform at the national level in baghdad perhaps someone who can rouse them from their sleep is the grand ayatollah ali al sistani for the second time in a few weeks he has reportedly sided with those demonstrations that maliki blamed on baathists first he expressed sympathy for the protests in a public announcement bayan dated 26 february today there are reports that he refuses to meet with any government officials pending an improvement in the general sitution footnote the legal election of abd al mahdi and hashemi for whom there is political support in parliament is held up mainly because of the continued candidacy of the unpopular khudayr al khuzai of maliki s shiite alliance posted in iraq s 2010 parliamentary election iraqi constitutional issues 12 comments shiite kurdish relations get strained over talabani statement on kirkuk posted by reidar visser on thursday 10 march 2011 14 11 there are basically two ways of looking at the relationship between the dominant shiite and kurdish political parties in iraq since 2003 one view emphasises converging interests such as constructing a black and white narrative of the country s past as sunni arab discrimination against everyone else systematically playing up ethno sectarian identities in politics distributing leadership posts not on the basis of merit but according to ethno sectarian quotas and generally keeping any tendencies of the re emergence of a strongman ruler in baghdad in check the contrarian position is to emphasise differences between the two such as the tendency of many shiites to maintain at least a façade and rhetoric of iraqi nationalism even if recruitment patterns may well be sectarian in practice hold on to the vision of a mostly centralised state ruled by a strong prime minister in baghdad and reject the multiplication of new federal entities south of kurdistan as well as kurdish moves to annex additional territories outside the ones recognised as part of the kurdistan regional government in the transitional administrative law of 2004 key developments since 2005 present a mixed scorecard as far as these two competing perspectives are concerned the new constitution of 2005 itself was of course basically the creation of the shiite and the kurdish parties but there are two trends within that constitution some clauses favour the kurdish view of unlimited decentralisation which at the time resonated with the views of at least one shiite party sciri the very limited powers of the central government and the award of residual powers to both governorates and federal regions in article 115 point in this direction as do the provisions for creating new federal regions south of kurdistan in what could theoretically turn in to a cycle of perpetual federalisation on the other hand other constitutional articles such as 121 122 point towards a more centralised form of government south of kurdistan similarly the constitutional arrangements for the end of the transitional veto wielding presidency after the first five year parliamentary cycle foreshadowed a potentially strong prime minister with a centralist and iraqi nationalist language emerging in the future later on the failure of the shiite and kurdish parties in 2007 arguably at the point of their greatest influence to amicably agree between themselves on an oil law and the disposition of the disputed city of kirkuk highlighted the extent to which centralist ideals continued to make themselves felt in the shiite camp at the expense of kurdish interests at one point between 2008 and 2009 it looked as if nuri al maliki was making decisive moves towards establishing himself as the nationalist centralist enabled by the 2005 constitution again to the detriment of the kurds but with the re emergence of sectarian politics in the autumn of 2009 the shiites refrained from re entering into conflict with the kurds over kirkuk during the debate of the elections law more recently as maliki emerged with a poorer result than he had hoped for in the march 2010 parliamentary elections he saw no other option but to turn to the kurds for support and has recently made conciliatory moves regarding kurdish oil exports it is interesting therefore that the latest statement on kirkuk by iraq s president jalal talabani a prominent kurdish leader seems to have once more created strains in the shiite kurdish relationship talabani said kirkuk was the jerusalem of kurdistan this prompted strong reactions from iraqis south of kurdistan sunnis and shiites alike who objected to the connotations of occupation assigned by talabani to the current situation in which kirkuk at least formally remains part of the central government domain and the concomitant discourse of an ethnic liberation campaign that would appeal to ethno racial kurdish sentiment to annex the area to kurdistan significantly today there is a strong condemnation of talabani s statement by maha al duri a sadrist leader in a press statement also published on her website she says that talabani s statement was irresponsible moreover she went on to escalate the issue by saying that if talabani considered kirkuk his jerusalem it would force iraqis to consider kurdistan their jerusalem she seemed to modify that perspective somewhat when she went on to say that all of iraq should be considered occupied by the americans and that talabani should understand the need for us forces to leave it is significant that this statement is not coming from the usual suspects on kirkuk and kurdish issues more broadly certain people close to...