November 7, 2010
Iraq's political rivals reached breakthrough ...
Iraq's political rivals reached a breakthrough power-sharing deal in which Nuri al-Maliki, seen here in June 2010, a Shiite, retains the premiership, a spokesman said Sunday, exactly eight months after inconclusive elections.…
BAGHDAD - Iraq's political rivals reached a breakthrough power-sharing deal in which Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, retains the premiership, a spokesman said Sunday, exactly eight months after inconclusive elections.
"An agreement was reached yesterday among the political parties in which the prime minister will stay on, and the Iraqiya party will choose its candidate for parliament speaker," government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said.
Dabbagh said the deal was between the National Alliance, which represents the main Shiite parties, and the Kurdish coalition, while Iraqiya's support hinged on its agreement over the posts of speaker and president.
"Iraqiya has not agreed for the moment over which side will have the parliament speaker's position and which side will have the presidency," the spokesman added.
Ex-premier Iyad Allawi's Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc, which won the most seats in the March 7 election but fell short of a parliamentary majority, confirmed the agreement and that discussions were continuing over those key posts.
"There is a draft agreement with the Iraqiya party, but there are still some problems to resolve," Dabbagh said, adding parliament would meet on Thursday to choose a speaker, the first step to forming a new government.
The spokesman added that both Maliki and Allawi would on Monday attend a ceremony in Arbil, the capital of the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan, to formally announce the agreement.Iraqiya MP Jamal al-Butikh said earlier his bloc had agreed on the power-sharing deal after it was assured that "no political decision would be made without its agreement."
"Iraqiya will go to Arbil under Allawi's leadership and because the party has been given reassurance in real power sharing," he said.
Butikh said it was unclear if the bloc would be offered the speaker's position or the presidency, although some of the group's members declared a preference for the latter, now held by Jalal Talabani, leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Iraqiya MP Alia Nusayef said Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite leader who has 40 seats in parliament, had also been invited to the Arbil meeting "because he brings equilibrium."
Sadr had first held discussions with Allawi, but then went into a Shiite alliance with Maliki.
Sunday's announcement came after Iraqi Kurdistan's regional president, Massud Barzani, said he had invited all political groups to meet on Monday in the Kurdish capital to resolve the crisis.
Iraq's second general election since the 2003 US-led invasion ended in deadlock after none of the main parties won enough of the 325 seats in parliament to form a majority government.
Parliament has since remained in hiatus, except for a 20-minute oath-taking ceremony and another brief meeting at which acting speaker Fuad Massum declared an indefinite "open" session.
On October 24, Iraq's supreme court ordered parliament to resume work, after an alliance of civil society groups launched a legal case against Massum, accusing him of violating the constitution by leaving the session open.
The constitution stipulates that a speaker, president and prime minister must be elected in that order.
The Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc narrowly won the election with 91 seats, closely followed by Maliki's State of Law Alliance with 89.
Neither had been able to muster the 163-seat majority required in the parliament, despite intense back-door negotiations with various Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs which also picked up seats.
Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party and Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which together won 43 seats, had entered into an alliance with Goran and two Kurdish Islamic parties that won six places.
The 57-seat bloc gave the alliance the muscle to decide who would form the next government, but Goran's exit has weakened their position.
But Goran, with eight seats, pulled out of the alliance last month after its proposed reforms for greater democracy in the autonomous Kurdistan region were ignored.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101107/wl_afp/iraqpolitics_20101107140631
