Meetings “without results”… Maliki and Sudani insist on running for the premiership
Meetings “without results”… Maliki and Sudani insist on running for the premiership
2026-04-26
Shafaq News – Baghdad
An informed political source reported on Sunday that the meetings between the head of the State of Law Coalition, Nouri al-Maliki, and the (outgoing) Prime Minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, regarding their withdrawal from the nomination for the premiership, “have not succeeded,” and each of them insists on his right to run, amid a leading expectation of the continuation of the political deadlock.
The source told Shafaq News Agency that “the candidates for the presidency of the Wisdom Movement, Maliki and Sudani, exchanged talks in direct and indirect meetings, during which offers were made to withdraw and leave the matter of voting on the other candidates in the hands of the framework.”
He added that “the official and inter-party meetings are attempts to bring the visions of the two sides closer, but they have not succeeded, and both sides refuse to withdraw, especially after the addition of new candidates to the list of candidates.”
Regarding the meetings that took place between some leaders of the coordination framework late last night, most notably the one held at the Government Palace and another at the home of former Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, the source explains: “I directly discussed putting forward the name of Haider al-Abadi as a compromise candidate, or Ihsan al-Awadi.”
He pointed out that “the framework will try to hold a new meeting this Sunday evening to choose the candidate by a majority vote and break the consensus rule, and if that goes ahead there will be opposition from within the framework to the next government.”
For his part, Abu Mithaq Al-Masari, a member of the Coordination Framework, told Shafaq News Agency that “the issue of deciding on the next prime minister is still thorny, and that the meeting of the Framework forces scheduled for this evening at the home of the Secretary-General of the Virtue Party, Abdul Hussein Al-Moussawi, will not lead to anything.”
He stressed that “this is due to the intransigence and insistence of the two main candidates (al-Sudani and al-Maliki), as both of them insist on their right to run for the position, and therefore the meeting will not lead to any outcomes that contribute to ending the political deadlock, unless one of the two parties concedes to the other.”
Late last night, the government palace in Baghdad witnessed a meeting of a number of Shiite political leaders, in an attempt to find solutions to the crisis of naming the next prime minister, after the forces of the Coordination Framework failed to agree on a mechanism for deciding the nomination .
A well-informed political source told Shafaq News Agency that the meeting focuses on “smoothing things over” between the framework forces, and searching for a way out that allows the transition from the stage of disagreement over names and the selection mechanism, to a consensus formula that can be passed within the Shiite bloc .
The meeting came after a further postponement of the Coordination Framework meeting that was scheduled for yesterday afternoon, to decide on its candidate for prime minister, amid continued differences among its leaders regarding the person who will be tasked with forming the next government .
According to the source, the dispute is no longer limited to the name of the candidate only, but also includes the nomination mechanism itself, and whether the decision will be made by political consensus or by voting within the framework, as well as the guarantees related to the distribution of ministerial portfolios .
Legal and constitutional expert Habib Al-Quraishi confirmed that the permanent constitution of the Republic of Iraq of 2005 set clear constitutional timeframes to regulate the process of building the state’s constitutional institutions after the Federal Supreme Court ratified the results of the general parliamentary elections, indicating that most of these timeframes are considered regulatory and not mandatory, as they are not associated with a legal penalty for exceeding them.
The forces of the Coordination Framework have been experiencing a series of faltering meetings for days, under the pressure of the constitutional deadline to task the candidate of the largest bloc with forming the government, after the election of the President of the Republic, while political sources speak of intensive attempts to avoid the disputes moving into a new stage of political deadlock.
shafaq.com
