Quotas and the position of the president.. “Achilles’ heel” increases the yield of the “lean seven”

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[size=52]Quotas and the position of the president.. “Achilles’ heel” increases the yield of the “lean seven” in the Iraqi parliament[/size]

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2024-06-29
If the Speaker of Parliament is absent, dies, or is dismissed, a new speaker will be elected within 3 days. This is what the Iraqi constitution stipulates, but despite the passage of more than 7 months since the dismissal of Mohammed al-Halbousi, the Sunni parties and alliances are still unable to elect his replacement.[/size]
[size=45]In this regard, the leader of the Hikma Movement, which is part of the Coordination Framework, Fahd al-Jubouri, confirmed that “the framework wants to hold a session to choose a new speaker of parliament, but the Sunni dispute is what prevented that, and we cannot say that the presidency of parliament was lost to the Sunni component as much as we say that there is no consensus within the Sunni house.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Jubouri expected, during his speech, that a Sunni agreement would be reached in the coming days to choose a candidate agreed upon at least “among the largest majority within the Sunni house.”[/size]
[size=45]MPs and observers believed that the vacancy of the position of the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament due to the lack of a quorum or the failure to agree on a single candidate harmed the Sunni component, as there are many suspended laws related to the implementation of the political agreement paper, expecting the issue of choosing the Speaker of Parliament to be resolved within the next month.[/size]
[size=45]An unenviable situation[/size]
[size=45]MP for the Parliamentary Initiative Bloc, Fahd Al-Rashed, said, “The situation of the House of Representatives is unenviable, as there are many laws that the people are waiting for, but they are suspended because they are linked to the election of the Speaker of Parliament, and because of the lack of quorum or the lack of agreement on a candidate, which has led to the disruption and paralysis of the work of the House of Representatives.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Rashed stated, “The vacancy of the position of Speaker of Parliament has greatly harmed the Sunni component, as there are many suspended laws that are related to the implementation of the political agreement paper, the most prominent of which are the general amnesty for the innocent, accountability and justice, compensation, the Federal Court Law, and the relationship between the region and the center.” Concerning oil, and other laws.”[/size]
[size=45]He stated that “the House of Representatives held two sessions to elect a Speaker of the House, but the withdrawal of the candidate of the Taqadum Party, Shaalan Al-Karim, exacerbated the situation, given that the Taqadum Party no longer had a candidate for the Presidency of the House of Representatives, and therefore there must be a political consensus whether to amend the bylaws, or all the candidates withdraw.” Their nomination, and thus obliges the House of Representatives to open the door for nominations again.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Rashed added, saying, “There is an important and fundamental obstacle in amending the internal regulations, as some parties want to call the presidency of the council the ‘presidency body’, and this is rejected by the decision of the Federal Court in 2010, which denied the existence of a ‘presidency body’, and confirmed that the House of Representatives consists of the president of the council and his two deputies.”[/size]
[size=45]The MP for the Initiative Bloc pointed out that “the Initiative parliamentary bloc has a call to gather all Sunni parties in the coming few days to agree on one or two figures to elect the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and it is expected that this file will be resolved within the next month, as the political forces and the regional environment do not allow the position of the Speaker of the House to be vacant.”[/size]
[size=45]Who is responsible for the delay?[/size]
[size=45]“Sunni representatives bear responsibility for the loss of this sovereign position allocated to them,” according to political analyst, Hussein Al-Sabaawi, indicating that “the position of Speaker of Parliament belongs to the share of the Sunni bloc that won the elections, and this is assumed beyond dispute, and it is known that the winning bloc is a party of progress, but after... The exclusion of the head of the bloc, who is himself the Speaker of Parliament, opened the door to disputes between the Sunni blocs and weakened the former Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad al-Halbousi, which opened the appetite of the secondary Sunni blocs to jump and obtain this position, and certainly this was with interference from the framework (the largest Shiite bloc).”[/size]
[size=45]As for the administration of Mohsen Al-Mandalawi, the acting Speaker of Parliament, it was - according to Al-Sabaawi - “unacceptable and in an improvised manner that was intended to obstruct the election of the Speaker of Parliament, especially when he announced the adjournment of the second session and then demanded that one candidate be presented. This request is illegal and unconstitutional, but he wants to implement the policy.” Coordination framework and monopolization of the position for a longer period.”[/size]
[size=45]Al-Sabaawi concluded by saying, “The Sunni representatives and the Coordination Framework are responsible for delaying the election of the Speaker of Parliament, while the Kurds are the least involved in the election issue.”[/size]
[size=45]Quota failure[/size]
[size=45]For his part, political analyst Ghazi Faisal explained that “the Iraqi constitution stipulates that in the event of the absence, death or dismissal of the Speaker of Parliament, a new speaker is elected within 3 days, but after the dismissal of Halbousi since last November until today, more than 7 months have passed and the Speaker of Parliament has not been elected, which means that the Sunni parties and alliances in the House of Representatives failed to elect a new Speaker of Parliament, whether in the first or second round, and the file remained suspended due to the many conflicts.”[/size]
[size=45]Faisal pointed out, during his interview with the agency, that “the Progress Party believes that as long as it represents the Sunni majority in parliament, the candidate should be from it only, as it represents the majority according to the sectarian quota system, which is basically unconstitutional for distributing positions.”[/size]
[size=45]He said: “We are facing a dangerous phenomenon represented by the failure of the sectarian quota system and represented by the failure of the Sunni parties to agree on choosing a national Iraqi figure from among the members of the House of Representatives who is qualified to manage the affairs of the Council, which constitute an important and priority for the democratic parliamentary political system according to the 2005 Constitution, as it is the legislative body for drawing up policies and enacting laws and the supervisory body over the executive authority.”[/size]
[size=45]According to the sectarian and political quota system, the Speaker of Parliament will be from the Sunni majority, the Prime Minister from the Shiites, and the Presidency of the Republic from the Kurds. The Sunni share in the presidency of the House of Representatives will remain with the difference of the majority party in the event of early elections, or in the 2025 elections, or in agreeing on a new majority in Parliament if there are resignations, alliances, and new alignments between the Sunni parties in Parliament, according to Faisal.[/size]
[size=45]He continued: "If the Progress Party continues to represent the majority of Sunni seats in Parliament according to the quota system, the Progress Party is supposed to bear the responsibility of presenting an acceptable candidate to be agreed upon with the Coordination Framework parties in order to get out of this parliamentary political impasse."[/size]
[size=45]If the sectarian quota system is abolished, the entire issue will change and everyone will go to elect a competent national figure, whether Shiite, Sunni, or Kurdish, for the Presidency of the Republic, Parliament, or the Council of Ministers, as is the practice in countries of the developed world, says Faisal.[/size]
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