After Al-Maliki... Al-Halbousi pushes Al-Sadr to call for early elections

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[size=52]After Al-Maliki... Al-Halbousi pushes Al-Sadr to call for early elections[/size]

[size=45]Baghdad/ Tamim Al-Hassan[/size]
[size=45]The governance equation drawn up by the coordination framework about two years ago appears to be in danger of disappearing now, due to the inability to implement the political agreement paper.[/size]
[size=45]Crises are escalating around the presidency of Parliament and the relationship with Kurdistan, while the solution appears to be “early elections,” or successive withdrawals of the major powers, without that.[/size]
[size=45]For this purpose, the card of the Sadrist movement and its leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, who has retired since the preparations for the current government in the summer of 2022, is being used.[/size]
[size=45]Shiite and non-Shiite forces are waiting, or indirectly, to push Al-Sadr to repeat his previous demand to “accelerate the elections,” while - as is his custom in the last two years - the movement of the movement’s leader baffles everyone.[/size]
[size=45]In the last interview with the ousted Parliament Speaker, Muhammad al-Halbousi, he hinted that he might “withdraw from the political process” if the political agreement was circumvented. The leader of the Taqadum Party said in the television interview that was broadcast a few days ago that he is “with early elections if Al-Sadr requests it.”[/size]
[size=45]The 2021 legislative elections were early elections that came against the backdrop of the October 2019 protests, following the overthrow of the previous government of Adel Abdul Mahdi.[/size]
[size=45]The results of the recent elections, which led to the Coordination Framework taking control of the reins of government, following Al-Sadr’s withdrawal, were also supposed to lead to a second early election.[/size]
[size=45]After “Tishreen,” most political forces came to the conviction of the necessity of carrying out comprehensive reforms in the political process to avoid what happened in those large demonstrations.[/size]
[size=45]The political system after Abdul Mahdi (former Prime Minister) has not yet stabilized, so Muhammad al-Sudani’s government program was carrying out arranging early elections a year after he took office.[/size]
[size=45]Ihsan Al-Shammari, professor of public policy at the University of Baghdad, told Al-Mada: “Early elections are a commitment by the Sudanese to the Iraqi people through the government program.”[/size]
[size=45]Parliament voted in late 2022 on the program, which included in its legislative axis, the third paragraph, holding early elections, “but this commitment was skipped, and then the framework abandoned this issue,” according to Al-Shammari. Last year, news leaked - so far unconfirmed - that the “early elections” clause had been deleted from the version that Parliament voted on. Returning now to talking about the early elections, the professor at the University of Baghdad finds it “the result of political blockage within the framework and between the Sunni forces around the Speaker of Parliament, and the problems between Baghdad and Erbil.”[/size]
[size=45]Presidency of Parliament[/size]
[size=45]In his last interview, Al-Halbousi claims that “Iran” is behind his exclusion from Parliament, and says that “every Sunni candidate now for the presidency of the Council is motivated by a Shiite party.”[/size]
[size=45]The presidency of Parliament has been vacant since last October, after the Federal Court decided to cancel Al-Halbousi’s membership, due to a fraud case.[/size]
[size=45]Since then, the coordinating framework has held the position, through Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, the leader of the Shiite Alliance, and Al-Halbousi’s first deputy.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Mandalawi's circumstances are similar to those of Khudair Al-Khuzaie, the second deputy of the late Jalal Talabani, who became President of the Republic for more than a year after the resignation of the other two representatives, Adel Abdul Mahdi and Tariq Al-Hashemi, in 2013.[/size]
[size=45]The coincidence, or intentionality, in removing Al-Halbousi - according to what the Taqaddum Party believes - allowed the Shiites to act with great caution in resolving the problem.[/size]
[size=45]According to political sources close to the “Framework,” the latter is considering getting out of the crisis by amending “the internal regulations of Parliament,” by converting the position to a “presidency.”[/size]
[size=45]This proposal sometimes reaches the point in negotiations until it turns into a condition. The “presidency” will weaken the president’s control over Parliament, and decisions will be unanimous or by a majority of two votes (the president and his two deputies).[/size]
[size=45]But the sources question the seriousness of this demand, especially since it (the proposal) was an excuse to abort the session that took place in January, to choose the Speaker of Parliament.[/size]
[size=45]The Federal Court previously issued a fatwa in its decision No. 87/Federal/2010, that there is no body called the Presidency in the House of Representatives.[/size]
[size=45]The court also rejected, a few days ago, the lawsuit filed by the Taqadum Party to nullify the session, which was considered a solution to nullify it by replacing the candidates.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Halbousi, on the other hand, is trying, according to what the sources say, to amend Article 12 in the parliament’s internal regulations regarding the issue of the vacancy of the position of Speaker of Parliament. Al-Halbousi is trying to introduce an amendment that would allow the introduction of a new candidate for the position of Speaker of Parliament, which will make the election of “the president difficult to achieve because it does not include a specification for the number of times nominations are opened nor the number of voting sessions,” according to a tweet by former MP Mishaan al-Jubouri.[/size]
[size=45]Between the two amendments, the “Framework” and “Halbousi” amendments, it pushes the rest of the Sunnis to continue in the second round of elections for the Speaker of Parliament, after the first was won by Shaalan al-Karim, a candidate who advanced, but without a decision. Al-Halbousi’s Sunni opponents believe that the uproar over Al-Karim, accusing him of “Baathism” and “ISIS,” will ensure that the Shiites vote for their candidate, Salem Al-Issawi.[/size]
[size=45]But Al-Halbousi, in his last interview, described Al-Issawi as “Saadoun Hammadi,” referring to the head of the National Council in the days of the previous regime, and he was affiliated with the Shiites.[/size]
[size=45]Threat of withdrawal[/size]
[size=45]Al-Halbousi hints in the dialogue that he will withdraw if a speaker of parliament is presented with “guardianship,” or if political dialogues, which appear to be recent and decisive, do not lead to a return to implementing the political agreement paper.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Halbousi's remarks resemble the preludes to Al-Sadr's retirement, who was threatening to withdraw after the 2021 elections, before retiring permanently following armed clashes in the Green Zone at the end of August 2022.[/size]
[size=45]Ihsan Al-Shammari, head of the Center for Political Thinking, says: “The state administration coalition equation is no longer capable of producing solutions, so proposals to jump out of the political process have begun.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Shammari adds, “The return of the Sadrist movement has become part of some attempts by the coordination framework, to be a strong and effective party in the political process and to restrain some political parties.”[/size]
[size=45]Analysts began to link Al-Sadr's recent movement and repeated public appearances to the fact that he was preparing to return to the political scene, and statements by the leader of the state of law, Nouri al-Maliki, supported those expectations.[/size]
[size=45]Al-Maliki said that he had information that “the Sadrist movement is preparing to participate in the upcoming elections,” and the Dawa Party claimed that it met “with Sadrist parties who demanded early elections.” This movement appeared to be taking place in conjunction with the Kurdistan Democratic Party's decision to boycott the regional parliament elections, and its threat to withdraw from the political process.[/size]
[size=45]But Al-Sadr, until now, has not shown any signs of returning, and his recent directives to return the resigned parliamentary bloc to work within a social framework have baffled everyone.[/size]
[size=45]In this regard, Rahim Al-Aboudi, a member of the Al-Hikma Movement, told Al-Mada that “the decision to return the movement to politics is “a decision issued by Al-Hanana (Al-Sadr’s residence in Najaf), and not from another place or party.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Aboudi believes that the idea of ​​early elections “is aimed at political parties trying to pressure their partners to gain a greater share of executive positions.”[/size]
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