Al-Halbousi's alternative has not been decided.. Parliamentary signatures to add a new candidate for

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[size=52]Al-Halbousi's alternative has not been decided.. Parliamentary signatures to add a new candidate for the position of Parliament Speaker[/size]

[size=45]Contradiction and tension still dominate the political arena regarding the issue of deciding the position of Parliament Speaker, as divisions and the search for partisan interests continue to dominate the situation regarding the vacancy of this position that has been suspended since last year.
However, in a new development, the representative of the Coordination Framework, Madiha Al-Maksousi, revealed the collection of parliamentary signatures to add a new candidate for the position of Parliament Speaker.
Since the Federal Supreme Court issued a decision on November 14, 2023 to terminate the membership of Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi on charges of “forgery” filed by Representative Laith Al-Dulaimi, the House of Representatives has been unable to elect a new speaker due to differences between the Sunni blocs, as the “Progress” bloc led by Al-Halbousi insists on the position, while the “Sovereignty” bloc led by Khamis Al-Khanjar and other Sunni blocs consider the position to be the right of the Sunni component as a whole.
The competition for the Parliament Speakership is limited to Salem Al-Issawi from Anbar Governorate and the candidate of the Sovereignty Alliance led by Khamis Al-Khanjar, and Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani from Baghdad, who enjoys some support from Al-Halbousi and some Shiite blocs.
Al-Maksousi said that “the parliament session on Wednesday was not held due to the lack of quorum and was postponed until further notice,” noting that “a number of parliament members collected parliamentary signatures yesterday, Thursday, in order to add another candidate for the parliament presidency.”
She added that “the step of collecting parliamentary signatures reminds us of what happened with the Kurdish representatives during the period of electing the president of the republic in the first period of forming the current government,” noting that “the parliament presidency file is in the court of the Sunni representatives and we ask them to speed up its resolution.”
She pointed out that “the Sunni differences have not come up with any solution to this crisis so far,” stressing that “the Coordination Framework is trying to resolve the file and not continue to obstruct the work of the parliament presidency.” She stressed that
“the meetings within the State Administration Coalition emphasize the need to speed up the resolution of the file, as obstructing it has a major impact on the political process.”
MP Kazem Al-Shammari confirmed that there is collusion between the parliament presidency and other political parties to not decide the position of parliament speaker, indicating that former parliament speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi is seeking to delay deciding the position to send a message that no one else is suitable for the position.
On August 27, the Victory Coalition, led by Haider al-Abadi, complained about the impact of Sunni differences over deciding the parliament presidency on the Coordination Framework.
On August 14, the State of Law Coalition, led by Nouri al-Maliki, revealed the possibility of amending the internal regulations of the Iraqi parliament, something that the head of the Progress Party, Mohammed al-Halbousi, has long called for, to allow for the nomination of a candidate from his party to succeed him.
This comes after six Sunni parliamentary forces announced that they would nominate a new candidate to fill the position of parliament speaker instead of the dismissed Mohammed al-Halbousi, stressing that they have a parliamentary majority.
The current political dispute revolves around amending the third paragraph of Article 12 of the House of Representatives’ internal regulations, which relates to the election of the Speaker of Parliament, which states: “If the position of the Speaker of the House or any of his deputies becomes vacant for any reason, the House shall elect a successor by an absolute majority in the first session it holds to fill the vacancy in accordance with the controls of political balances between the blocs.”
However, some political blocs are proposing to add a paragraph that gives the authority to reopen the nomination process and replace previous candidates for the position of Parliament Speaker.
It is noteworthy that the head of the Sovereignty Alliance, Khamis Al-Khanjar, confirmed on June 25 that what is happening in the Sunni house regarding the position of Speaker of the House of Representatives is differences, not disputes, and will be resolved soon, pointing to the intervention of the leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Masoud Barzani, in the crisis.
Voting on the Speaker of the House of Representatives requires a quorum of half plus one of the number of seats in Parliament, which the Sunni forces do not have, as the number is 166 MPs, and the Progress Party, which holds the majority of Sunni seats, only has about 35 seats.
On May 18, the House of Representatives failed to choose a new speaker after failing to hold a third “decisive” round to tip the scales in favor of one of the candidates, MP Salem Al-Issawi from the Sovereignty Party, and Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, who is supported by the Progress Party.
The voting witnessed a fierce competition between MPs Salem Al-Issawi and Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani, as the former received 158 votes while the latter received 137 votes. MP Amer Abdul-Jabbar also received 3 votes, while the invalid votes amounted to 13 votes. 311 MPs (out of a total of 329) cast their votes in the first round, which began at 4:00 pm Baghdad time.
However, the third round did not see the light of day due to a quarrel between the MPs that developed into a fistfight, as the MPs’ phones documented a verbal altercation and fistfight between MPs from Al-Taqaddom and colleagues from other blocs over the election of a parliament speaker.[/size]
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