Iraq: Closing the last door for candidacy for the presidency amid the "political blockage"

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[size=52]Iraq: Closing the last door for candidacy for the presidency amid the "political blockage"[/size]

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An Iraqi protester against the high prices in the city of Nasiriyah yesterday (AFP)

[size=45]Yesterday, the presidency of the Iraqi parliament closed the last nomination door for the post of President of the Republic, amid the persistence of what has become known as the "political blockage" in the country.
The Federal Supreme Court had accepted the appeal submitted by one of the representatives, regarding the unconstitutionality of opening the candidacy for the position of President of the Republic for the second time, after the exclusion of the former candidate of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Hoshyar Zebari.
As the position of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, led by Masoud Barzani, seemed very difficult, given the ambiguity of the fate of its alternative candidate, the Minister of Interior of the Kurdistan Region, Reber Ahmed Barzani, the Federal Court took a decision as a compromise as a lifeline for the Kurdistan Democratic Party. After the parliament’s presidency took a decision to open the candidacy door for a period of three days, with the aim of allowing the Kurdistan Democratic Party to nominate an alternative to Zebari, the Federal Court, which appealed this decision, at the same time granted parliament by a simple majority, not the parliament presidency, the right to reopen the candidacy door for once One and last. Thus, last Sunday, Parliament held a session devoted to opening the door for candidacy, and it was voted on by a large majority (203 votes from a total of 256 deputies present).
According to the timing, the last nomination window was closed yesterday, pending the setting of the presidential election for the fifth parliamentary session.
A parliamentary source told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the session to elect a new president among dozens of contenders will be held after the 20th of this March… The Presidency of the Parliament has prepared all the requirements for this regarding the mechanism of electing the president with all impartiality among all candidates,” noting that “ The vote will be secret.
On the Federal Court’s decision regarding a two-thirds majority, the parliamentary source confirmed that “the decisions of the Federal Court are now binding on all authorities, including its interpretation of the session for the election of the new president, as it stipulated a two-thirds majority (220) of the total members of the Iraqi parliament (329) in the first session. In the event that none of the candidates managed to win this number of votes in the first round, a simple majority can be won, provided that the quorum of the full session remains with a two-thirds majority.
While more than 50 candidates are competing for the position of President of the Republic, according to parliamentary estimates, the competition is limited to two: the candidate of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the current president, Barham Salih, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party candidate, Reber Ahmed Barzani, on the grounds that the position of President of the Republic is according to prevailing custom. In Iraq after 2003, it is part of the Kurdish component.
While there was a kind of consensus between the two main parties in the Kurdistan region (the Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union), this consensus has been disrupted since the last parliamentary session in 2018, when they entered into two contenders: the current president, Barham Salih, and the current foreign minister, Fouad Hussein. During the current parliamentary session, the same scenario is repeated. However, according to the context of the current alliances, especially after the splitting of the “Shiite House” into several forces and parties united by two antagonistic alliances, namely: the “Triple Alliance”, led by the leader of the “Sadr Movement”, Muqtada al-Sadr, and with him the “Kurdistan Democratic Party”, and the “Alliance of Sovereignty,” led by Muhammad al-Halbousi and Khamis al-Khanjar, and the counter coalition is the “coordinating framework,” along with the “PUK” and the “Sunni Azm Alliance.”
While al-Sadr wants to form a national majority government, the "coordinating framework" wants a government with broader participation. Given that each of the two alliances owns the "blocking third", it seemed difficult to proceed with the rest of the constitutional requirements, which are electing a new president of the republic, and then determining who is the largest bloc in order to choose someone in charge of forming the government.
In light of this political blockage, starting from today until the twentieth of this month, the political blocs will begin to engage in the last rounds of negotiations and understandings between them, in the hope of reaching a compromise or the continuation of the caretaker government led by Mustafa Al-Kazemi for an indefinite period. According to expectations, if no agreement or consensus is reached, parliament may be dissolved and new early elections called.[/size]
[size=45]Baghdad: «Asharq Al-Awsat»[/size]
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