Iraq: The return of the controversy over the “largest bloc”… and features of a crisis over the next government
Iraq: The return of the controversy over the “largest bloc”… and features of a crisis over the next government
10-14-2021
While the Independent High Electoral Commission in Iraq began manual counting of 140 stations in Karkh and Rusafa in Baghdad, which had not been counted and sorted electronically, the State of Law Coalition, led by Nuri al-Maliki, announced that it was in contact with several forces in order to form the largest bloc in Iraq. The next parliament, which suggests an upcoming political crisis regarding the task of forming the new government, which is supposed to be given to the Sadrist movement, as it won the largest number of deputies in the new parliament.
And the “Iraqi News Agency” quoted the Director of Procedures at the Electoral Commission, Daoud Salman, that the commission will start “the procedures for manual counting and sorting in Karkh and Rusafa, and the results will be announced within seven days.” He added that “after the commission has completed sending all the results and considering the appeals, the board of commissioners will approve the results and they will be announced to everyone.” He pointed out that “manual counting and sorting will be for 140 stations only, whose results were not stored in a memory stick and were not sent via satellite.”
The preliminary results announced by the Electoral Commission, two days ago, showed significant progress for the movement of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, followed by the “State of Law coalition” led by Maliki, on the Shiite front, in return for a significant decline of the forces loyal to Iran, led by Hadi’s “Al-Fateh Alliance” bloc. Al Amri. While the “Progress” party led by Muhammad al-Halbousi advanced on the Sunni side, which inflicted a major defeat on his rival “Azm Alliance” led by businessman Khamis al-Khanjar, the “Kurdistan Democratic Party”, led by Massoud Barzani, made remarkable progress in the Kurdish front at the expense of its opponent, the National Union. Kurdistan.” While these results won the approval of the forces that won, they, on the other hand, angered the losers to the extent that many of them threatened to use force to protect what they called the “political process.”
In the forefront of these armed factions loyal to Iran, where the elections inflicted a severe loss on its political wing, the “Al-Fateh Alliance”.
The Electoral Commission, which was said to have rushed in announcing the results even assuming that they are preliminary before completing the counting and sorting process in the remaining stations, made it clear that the results it announced were preliminary and subject to appeal, and granted the owners of appeals and complaints a period of 3 days to submit their appeals. It takes about 20 days to announce the final results before the Federal Court approves them, and the first session of the new parliament begins. A number of Iraqi leaders and leaders who suffered a great loss, with the exception of the leader of the “Hikma Movement” Ammar al-Hakim, attacked the Electoral Commission. Among them is Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, whose daughter Sarah suffered a severe loss, although Allawi put all his weight for her victory, even after his “national” coalition announced a boycott of the elections. The commission also attacked the leader of the “Al-Fateh Alliance” Hadi al-Amiri, who described the elections as “fabricated”. It was also attacked by former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other leaders in the “Al-Fateh Alliance” and the armed factions.
Although the manual counting and appeals operations resulted in an increase in the Fatah Alliance seats from 14 to 17, the Sadrists, who won 73 seats, remain the largest bloc that must form the new government.
In this context, the controversy over the “largest bloc” has returned again. While the Sadrists see that the largest bloc is the list that wins the most votes, their opponent, the State of Law coalition led by Nuri al-Maliki, believes that the largest bloc will be formed within the House of Representatives from different blocs and lists. The Iraqi legal expert, Tariq Harb, said in a statement, “The Sadrist bloc is the most numerous bloc that will be tasked with forming the government in accordance with Article 45 of the Parliament’s Elections Law and Article 76 of the Constitution.” He added that “the President of the Republic, who will be elected by Parliament, is obliged to assign the Sadrist bloc alone to the other blocs to nominate the person charged with forming the government, because the electoral results showed the superiority of this bloc over the other blocs,” noting that “the interpretation of the Federal Supreme Court has been seized and specified in Article (( 45) of the new election law No. 9 of 2020, which prevented the transfer of the membership of MPs from one bloc to another, a matter that previously contributed to the disruption of the process of determining the most numerous bloc in Parliament. He continued that «preventing the transfer of a member or members of an entire bloc means that the parliamentary blocs are fixed in numbers and do not change, as stated in the final results, and cannot be increased by the transition that was prohibited by the aforementioned article. And since the Sadrist bloc has the highest number of winners, it ensured that the President of the Republic assigned it to it.” He continued that «preventing the transfer of a member or members of an entire bloc means that the parliamentary blocs are fixed in numbers and do not change, as stated in the final results, and cannot be increased by the transition that was prohibited by the aforementioned article. And since the Sadrist bloc has the highest number of winners, it ensured that the President of the Republic assigned it to it.” He continued that «preventing the transfer of a member or members of an entire bloc means that the parliamentary blocs are fixed in numbers and do not change, as stated in the final results, and cannot be increased by the transition that was prohibited by the aforementioned article. And since the Sadrist bloc has the highest number of winners, it ensured that the President of the Republic assigned it to it.”
Harb explained that “the transition is different from the coalition; The first is counted as a member of the bloc to which it is transferred, and the coalition does not add anything to the numbers of blocs, because the coalition keeps the same number of members for the blocs unchanged, as the bloc remains on its numbers without increasing.” He stressed that «what happened in the 2010 elections when Al-Maliki won 89 votes and Allawi 91 votes, but the transition (the transfer of representatives from one bloc to another) was open, so a number of members moved to the owners, which made the number of his bloc more than 100 votes, that is, more than the number of votes Allawi, which resulted in assigning al-Maliki to form a government.”
As for the legal expert, Ali Al-Tamimi, he explained to the “Iraqi News Agency” (INA) that “the interpretations of the Federal Supreme Court 2010 and 2014 confirm that the most numerous bloc is either formed after the elections from one list, or which was formed from two or more lists, so the bloc became The most numerous in the first session after taking the oath. He added, “After the issuance of the Elections Law 9 of 2020 in Article 45, which prevented blocs, parties and entities from moving to another bloc or party except after the formation of the government that authorized coalitions between blocs, that is, the second condition of the interpretation of the Federal Supreme Court in accordance with Article 45 became disabled due to Prohibition of transfers, but the second part of this article permitted the coalition between blocs and parties, which is not the bloc or grouping to which the interpretation of the Federal Supreme Court refers; Because this means that each bloc retains its entity without becoming one bloc with the others,” noting that “the goal of this coalition is to reach the absolute majority.”
He pointed out that “the bloc with the most number is the one that wins the most votes to begin with, and it is from which the Prime Minister and the ministers will emerge.”
For his part, the researcher in political affairs, Wael Al-Rikabi, confirmed to the “Iraqi News Agency” that “the interpretation of the Federal Court still exists regarding the diagnosis of which bloc is the most numerous, and he did not specify the winning bloc in the elections.” He added that “the election law is not concerned with the most numerous parliamentary bloc, meaning that the winning bloc does not have the right to form a government,” noting that “alliances within the parliament will result in the next prime minister, according to Article 76 of Iraqi law.”
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