Iraqi Shiite powers fail to choose candidate for PM

Ali Ragab

Iraq has entered a new stage of political vacuum, with Shiite forces declaring their inability to agree to choose a president for the Iraqi government.

The Saairon Alliance, led by Sadrist movement leader, Muqtada al-Sadr, announced, Monday, that the seven-member committee did not reach an agreement to choose a candidate for the prime minister position.

Representative Nabil Al-Tarfi, head of the alliance, has affirmed that Iraqi President, Barham Salih should now exercise his constitutional powers by commission.

By 2020, Iran had succeeded in infiltrating major Iraqi government branches and institutions, grooming financial, political, judicial, and armed proxies, it is preserved by many as the main reason behind the deteriorating situations in Iraq.

For her part, Mayada al-Najjar, a member of parliament for the Kurdistan Democratic Party said that the three presidencies in the Kurdistan Region coordinate with each other and engage with the parties to unify the Kurdish stand towards the file of forming the new government.

Local media quoted Al-Najjar as saying that “the Kurdish blocs will support the next Prime Minister given a number of conditions; first that he must be acceptable to all components of the Iraqi society, especially the main components, secondly that the candidate is obliged to implement the constitution, and thirdly he must observe the constitutional rights and demands of Kurdistan.

Given the rise in popular anti-Iranian sentiment in Iraq and the death of Soleimani, Iran has had to move from policies that boldly project power to a more restrained posture. Therefore, this led to the creation of a seven-member committee representing the major Shi’a parties to nominate a Shi’a candidate for PM.

Shi’a parties thought of an approach that would include the two staunch rivals al-Maliki and al-Sadr, as well as the rest of the main Shi’a political parties.

Observers believe that there are two options before the Iraqi Shiite blocs after the failure of the seven-member committee to agree to choose a candidate to take over the transitional government, after the resignation of Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi, who was appointed in early February by Iraqi President Barham Saleh.

Allawi withdrew on the last day of the constitutional duration because of a lack of quorum at parliament to vote on his proposed cabinet lineup.

The two options before the Shiite blocs in resolving the candidate for prime minister are either to keep the resigned prime minister Adil Abdul Mahdi, which was rejected by Al-Fath coalition, led by the leader of the Shiite Badr Organization Hadi al-Amiri.

Abdul Mahdi, meanwhile, said he would take “voluntary absence” and not carry out most official duties. He asked for a deputy prime minister or minister to chair cabinet meetings.

The second option is to let Iraqi President, Barham Salih, choose his own candidate, in the event that the political forces fail to agree on a candidate, which was revealed by the statement of the Sawaron bloc that demanded the Iraqi president to exercise his constitutional powers by assignment.