May 22, 2010
The biggest bloc must form government and not the winning bloc in the elections ...
"The largest parliamentary bloc is charged under the Iraqi Constitution to form the government and not the winning bloc which got the highest votes in the elections, in the presence of a legal debate in the country about the bloc that will be charged to form the government," an Iraqi legal expert said on Saturday.
"Article 76 of the Iraqi Constitution stated that the largest bloc must form the government. The largest bloc is the bloc that is formed from the coalition of several blocs and not the one that took the largest number of votes," Tarek Harb said.
"The constitutional paragraph did not refer to the bloc which wins the highest votes in the elections, but pointed out to that the largest parliamentary bloc to constitute the government," Harb added.
Al-Iraqiya list, led by the former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, demands its right to form the next government after it got 91 seats in the elections, that were the higest number of votes.
"Al-Iraqiya list has achieved the highest votes in the election but did not achieve the majority. It did not succeed until now in allying with any political bloc to form the majority and thus form the next government," Harb said.
Many hope that the meetings between outgoing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Allawi would solve the problems and help in forming the government quickly.
Al-Iraqiya list threatened that it would take many procedures including repeating the elections in the presence of the outgoing Iraqi government.
The debate now is over:Who is authorized to form the next government, while Al-Iraqiya bloc confirms its right, based on Article 76 of the Constitution, where as the two Shiite alliances insist on this right, based on the interpretation of the Federal Court.
The Iraqi parliamentary elections were held on the 7th of March, and the results of the elections were announced on the 26th. They showed the progress of Iraqiya List led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, by gaining 91 seats, followed by the State of Law coalition led by outgoing Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki with 89 seats, while the Iraqi National Alliance won 70 seats and the Kurdistan Alliance List came in the fourth place by obtaining 43 seats.
According to the interpretation of the Federal Court of the term "largest parliamentary bloc," which will be assigned to form a government, as in Article 76 of the Iraqi Constitution, it is either the bloc that was formed after the elections by one electoral list and had participated in the elections in a certain name and number, and had earned the most number of seats, or the bloc that was made by allying two or more than two electoral lists, which participated in the elections with different names and numbers and then united in a single block with a single entity in the Parliament.
