A deputy leads a coup against independents in the 16-hour session to pass the St. Lego law

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[size=52]A deputy leads a coup against independents in the 16-hour session to pass the St. Lego law[/size]

[size=45]Controversy over the legality of the Monday morning session, which was held a day after the scheduled date[/size]
[size=45]A version of the new law requires allocating job grades to provincial councils and increasing their numbers[/size]
[size=45]Baghdad / Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]The big forces in parliament had to urgently summon some deputies from their homes to prevent independents from obstructing the legislation of the new election law.[/size]
[size=45]And some deputies arrived at dawn on Monday - when the quorum was not achieved until that time - to the parliament wearing inappropriate clothes, according to the words of the opponents of the law.[/size]
[size=45]On that day, Parliament set a record for the longest waiting time for a session, which reached 16 continuous hours.[/size]
[size=45]In the end, a deputy and a limited number of her colleagues infiltrated a bloc affiliated with the independents to increase the support of the supporters and pass about half of the articles of the law.[/size]
[size=45]Parliament was able to pass paragraphs related to the distribution of representatives of minorities (quota) in the provinces, and technical issues regarding the counting and sorting of ballot papers, as well as setting a new date for local elections.[/size]
[size=45]On the other hand, there are still major contentious articles, most notably the abolition of the multiple districts, although implicitly “St. Lego” was recognized in the paragraphs that were voted on.[/size]
[size=45]The copy of the amendments to the new law consisting of 15 items and the proposals that exceeded 20 proposals also bear other issues such as increasing the members of the provincial councils.[/size]
[size=45]Parliament decided, after 3 a.m. on Monday, to postpone voting on the rest of the articles of the new election law until next Saturday, due to disagreements and the exhaustion of deputies over the long waiting period.[/size]
[size=45]Hadi al-Salami, one of the deputies who objected to the proposed version of the law from the coordination framework, says: “We did what we could do, and there was nothing left but popular pressure to stop the large blocs.”[/size]
[size=45]According to Al-Salami, who spoke to Al-Mada, the number of deputies who objected to last Sunday's session, which was scheduled to pass the election law, "has reached 73 deputies."[/size]
[size=45]Within 15 hours, starting from the official date of the session, which was set at 11 am on Sunday, until 2 am on Monday, the council was unable to achieve a quorum.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Salami continues: “Representative Sarwa Abdel-Wahed and a group of limited deputies from her bloc changed their position in the last hour (for reasons he did not mention) before the session took place and strengthened the ranks of supporters of passing the law.”[/size]
[size=45]Abdel Wahed is the head of the New Generation Bloc and owns 9 deputies. Earlier, her bloc had allied with the Extension Movement, which is one of the most prominent parties of the October protests.[/size]
[size=45]Then, in a statement, “Emtilada” considered the insistence of the political forces to pass the election law as standing against “the opinion of the reference and the street.”[/size]
[size=45]A quorum of at least 165 deputies is required to hold the parliament session, while the parliament was able, at three o'clock in the morning on Monday, to meet with 171 deputies after the "Sarwa coup".[/size]
[size=45]Representative Al-Salami points out that "the pro-deputies had reached a state of despair from achieving the quorum at one o'clock after midnight on Sunday, Monday, but they stubbornly continued with the independents."[/size]
[size=45]The deputy transmits scenes from that long night and Yazid, saying: “Some representatives were summoned from their homes at bedtime quickly to fill the shortage due to the absence of some parliamentarians and the preoccupation of others with the Nowruz holidays, which coincided with the eve of the adoption of the law.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Salami added, "Some of the female representatives came wearing headscarves upside down, and some of the representatives were wearing untidy suits because of the speed with which they were summoned."[/size]
[size=45]Footage broadcast on social media, a few hours before the session, showed a number of independent deputies in the council's cafeteria, chanting phrases against "St. Lego."[/size]
[size=45]According to a statement by the media office of Parliament, the latter was able to vote on 7 paragraphs out of 15 in the new amendment to the law, and decided to complete the rest of the articles in the session next Saturday.[/size]
[size=45]There were objections from deputies related to the legality of the day of the session, as it was scheduled for Sunday, and the session opened on Monday, and others questioned the achievement of the quorum.[/size]
[size=45]What did Parliament vote on?[/size]
[size=45]In its last session, Parliament extended the date for holding local elections by one month from the previous date set by Prime Minister Mohamed Al-Sudani next October, while remaining silent on the legislative elections.[/size]
[size=45]The large blocs of the law that combines local and legislative elections passed the following articles, according to the council’s statement:[/size]
[size=45]First of Article 15: The House of Representatives consists of (329) three hundred and twenty-nine seats distributed as follows:[/size]
[size=45]A- (320) three hundred and twenty seats will be distributed among the governorates, as indicated in Table No. (1) attached to the law.[/size]
[size=45]B: The following components are granted a share (quota) of the total number of general seats in the House of Representatives, provided that this does not affect their share in the event of their participation in the general lists, and it will be as follows:[/size]
[size=45]1: The Christian component (5) five seats distributed to the governorates of Baghdad, Nineveh, Kirkuk, Dohuk and Erbil.[/size]
[size=45]2: The Yazidi component (1), one seat in Nineveh Governorate.[/size]
[size=45]3: The Sabean-Mandaean component (1), one seat in the Baghdad governorate.[/size]
[size=45]4: Network component (1) one seat in Nineveh Governorate.[/size]
[size=45]5: The Faili Kurds component (1), one seat in Wasit Governorate.[/size]
[size=45]A: The governorate for which a quota seat has been allocated is one constituency to represent the allocated quota seat within the House of Representatives according to its administrative borders.[/size]
[size=45]The House of Representatives also voted on Article (16) as follows:[/size]
[size=45]Firstly:[/size]
[size=45]A- The Commission adopts the electronic results acceleration devices and conducts the manual counting and sorting process for all polls and for all stations in the same polling station after sending the results to the results tabulation center, the carrier and issuing the electronic results report from the results acceleration device. The Commission is committed to announcing the results within 24 hours of public and private voting. .[/size]
[size=45]B- In the event of a mismatch between the results of the electronic counting and sorting and the manual counting and sorting in the same polling station by less than 5%, the results of the manual counting and sorting shall be approved.[/size]
[size=45]C- In the event that the results of the electronic manual counting and sorting do not match the results of the manual counting by 5% or more of the total valid papers inside the box, the station is transferred to the central audit center in the governorate for the purpose of auditing the station and re-counting and manual sorting. The Commission approves the results of the manual counting and sorting of the ballot papers in Provincial audit center.[/size]
[size=45]D- In the event that the results are not sent by the Results Acceleration Device to the Results Topebe Center for a period of (6) six hours, the boxes whose results were not sent through the transmission medium are transferred to the central audit centers in the governorate to take the procedures approved by the Commission and the results of manual counting and sorting are approved.[/size]
[size=45]The first election in a decade[/size]
[size=45]The latest version of the new law, which Al-Mada reviewed, contains an article related to the need for the government to provide job grades for members of the provincial councils, which had been canceled in the wake of the October protests in 2019.[/size]
[size=45]Another article proposes to increase the members of the provincial councils to 12 instead of 10 in the previous law, and to increase one seat per 200,000 people for more than one million people.[/size]
[size=45]Second articles - which have not been passed so far - prevent the transfer of a member of the winning bloc in the provincial elections to another bloc before choosing the governor, in addition to the councils continuing their work (after the end of their term) until new elections are held.[/size]
[size=45]The law restores provincial council elections for the first time after 10 years, as the last local elections were held in 2013.[/size]
[size=45]As a result, protesters in a number of governorates decided to declare an “escalation” against the new law, while opponents in southern cities announced that the deputy who votes on the law would be prevented from entering the city.[/size]
[size=45]In addition, Muhammad Al-Baldawi, the deputy for the coordination framework, confirmed that the reason for the postponement of the session is due to “the fatigue of the representatives, especially the elderly, and to give the opportunity for more understandings.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Baldawi said in an interview with (Al-Mada) that “because of the long wait for the session, which lasted from Sunday morning until Monday dawn, it affected the deputies who suffer from chronic diseases, as other deputies had their travel reservations disrupted because the session coincided with the Nowruz holidays.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Baldawi, a member of Asaib Ahl al-Haq, indicated that there are differences regarding the law between the deputies who attended the last session, related to: “The components’ request to count Iraq as one constituency, and the women, given that the winning votes are outside the women’s quota.”[/size]
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