ALSUMARIA reports that Mustafa al-Kadhimi made a public plea yesterday for the elements of the political parties and politicians to come together and form a new government. Elections were held October 10th, six months ago. Though a Speaker of Parliament has been elected, Parliament has failed to elect a president and, without a president, no one can be named prime minister designate. (Once named prime minister designate, the person has 30 days to form a Cabinet. If they do so, they are supposed to then become prime minister. That rule's been fudged repeatedly over the years.)
After Parliament failed several times this year to elect a new president, Iraq has entered a constitutional vacuum.
These events led to the end of the constitutional deadline set by the Federal Supreme Court on 6 April.
This required the court to resort to legal
jurisprudence and issue a decision to continue the term of current
President Barham Salih until a new president is elected.
Since its first session on 9 February,
Parliament has been unable to elect a president from 40 candidates led
by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) candidate, the current
president, Barham Salih, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party's candidate,
Rebar Ahmed.
Did the Court extend it to April 6th?
Well if you think it's a crisis, why don't you get honest with your readers. The due date, per the Constitution, not the Court, passed in February. That's reality.
And it's yet another example of the Court trying to make law and not interpret it. That's not their function. They came under heavy criticism for their recent decision against the KRG and what the KRG can do with oil because their decision was not based upon existing law.
Laws are written by the legislative branch, not by the Court. The Court can uphold them or find them unconstitutional. But they cannot write laws, that's not their power. Maybe if the world's press would pay attention, the Iraqi Supreme Court would feel less likely to attempt to grab powers that they have no right to?
Iraq’s
President Barham Salih on Saturday said that the current political
deadlock in the country would have dangerous repercussions, and called
for the process of forming a new government to be speeded up.
Nearly six months have passed since Iraq held parliamentary elections,
yet the country still has no government, due to wrangling over who will
take the roles of president, prime minister and important posts in the
Cabinet.
The
parties have been unable to agree on a candidate for president, a
problem that may also extend to the position of prime minister.
Barham insists it's a "crisis." Well if he really feels that way, he holds the highest office of any member of the PUK political party. They have been one of the stumbling blocks in forming a government because they want him to have another term as president. The PUK has gotten less and less votes every election (we've addressed the why of that before). And this go round? Their worst ever. So why do they get to hold the post of the president? It's one thing to say that the post has to be held by a Kurd, it's another thing to say it has to be held by an unpopular party.
The KDP has consistently gotten more votes than the PUK.
Again, Barham's the one calling it a ''crisis.'' If he really believes that, then, for the good of the country, he should announce that his political party is withdrawing their nomination (the PUK is nominating him).
He doesn't do that.
And he didn't consider it to be a "crisis" until last week when Moqtada al-Sadr, having failed three times to build support for his presidential choice (always from the KDP though the nominee has differed) decided to step away for a few weeks *forty days) to see if the 'other side' could have any more luck forming a government.
So shame on THE NATIONAL for reporting on this without disclosing that Barham's sudden 'concern' over the 'crisis' comes as his alliance has a few weeks time to try to install him into another term as president.
Protests are taking place in Dora.
ALSUMARIA reports that people are outraged over the huge energy costs and are protesting outside a refinery. Dora is a district in southern Baghdad that was populated starting in the sixties with a housing boom. It was a mixed neighborhood with Shia and Sunni and with various religions including Christianity. Was. The US-led Iraq War changed that.
ALSUMARIA notes that the protest is largely made up of factory workers and cement worker and owners.
I'm posting early because we're working on THIRD. We've got two stories on Iraq in rough draft form. They cover topics not noted above. While going through Arabic media for topics, those two emerged as did the main one above. I'm hoping that a full edition can be done today (that may be too much to hope for) and we won't have to carry over any work to Monday.
A friend has a column at VARIETY, please check that out. I'm also going to advocate for a "truest statement of the week" from that column.
