Mohammad Al-Halbousi and intensive consultations; Trying to put his ally on the chair of the Iraqi parliament

It is clear in Al-Halboosi’s words that in addition to emphasizing the necessity of speeding up the election The speaker of the parliament, the head of the “Tadegh” party, considers two criteria for this selection. The first criterion is “the nation’s vote for political trends”, which in the 2021 parliamentary elections, the Tadagh party won the highest number of votes among the Sunni parties. The second criterion is “political agreements at the time of the formation of the coalition of the state administration”, at which time al-Halbousi established his presidency of the parliament and even formally resigned so that the representatives of the Shiite coordination framework unanimously opposed his resignation!

Traded party chairman, in his meeting with Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, repeated his positions in his meeting with Al-Sudani and further added: “Unity of political groups is a necessary and unavoidable condition for maintaining sovereignty It is national.” Abdul Latif al-Rashid has also spoken similar words in support of al-Halbousi’s position. These cases show that al-Halbousi expects – under the pretext of unity – all political parties to support the position of the Toad party to elect Sholan Karim as the head of the parliament!

The Iraqi judicial system talked about the “election of the speaker of the parliament” and the legal conditions for his election, which clearly refers to the open case of “Shalan Karim” which is the option supported by al-Halbousi to be the speaker of the parliament. He had won the majority of votes in the first round of voting in the parliament. However, with the complaint of two Shiite representatives to the Supreme Court and with the support of the Vice Speaker of the Parliament for these two complaining representatives, the second round of elections was not held until the Federal Supreme Court announced its decision on the possibility of “Shalan Karim” being the head of the parliament.

In his meeting with Seyyed Ammar Hakim, he repeated his positions in the meeting with al-Halbousi and added: “The chairmanship of the parliament is the main quota of the Sunni house in the Iraqi government.” For this reason, the final option for electing the Speaker of the Parliament is a matter that goes back to the Sunni House and the Sunni parties should have the final word on this matter. Al-Hakim also supported this idea. These positions of Al-Halbousi mean that the Shia parties and the Shia coordination framework do not have the right to enter into a coalition with a part of the Sunni house against another part of the Sunni parties and enter into the issue of electing the speaker of the parliament!

The company of yesterday’s rivals?

Meanwhile, the company of some of Al-Halbousi’s political rivals is also interesting. “Ahmed al-Jubouri” (Abu Mazen), who is trying to keep the governorship of Saladin in the portfolio of his party (Jamahir al-Watani), apparently has once again entered into an alliance with al-Halbousi!

The formation of the “Siadeh” coalition and the agreement between Al-Halbousi and Khamis Khanjar, Abu Mazen also joined this coalition as a third party. But with the resignation of the Sadr movement and the transformation of the Shiite coordination framework into the majority of the parliament, Abu Mazen had distanced himself from them during an obvious political turn, and now political hearsay and media reports say that Ahmad Al-Jubouri has once again joined Al-Halbusi.

But this is not the whole story. Al-Azm coalition, headed by Mothni al-Samarai, which is the gathering place of the main opponents and rivals of al-Halbousi in the parliament, also issued a statement on Friday asking all political groups to determine the date of the election of the new speaker of the parliament as soon as possible. Due to the fact that they did not have a special consultation for the election of the speaker of the parliament in recent days, the issuance of this statement shows that Mushani al-Samrai has also joined al-Halbousi.

The point is that Mohammad al-Halbousi chose someone He has proposed for the chairmanship of the parliament as he is considered one of the big sheikhs of one of the main tribes of Salah al-Din province. And now his two main rivals, who are also from Salah al-Din, support the presidency of one of their fellow provinces in the parliament.

The former presidents of the Iraqi parliament were Muhammad al-Halbousi, Salim al-Jubouri and Osama al-Nujaifi. They are from Anbar, Diyala and Nineveh provinces respectively. In fact, since 2010, when Osama al-Nujifi from Mosul (Nineveh) became the head of the parliament, Salah al-Din province had lost this position. Perhaps it can be said that one of the reasons for Shalan Karim’s approval by the Toad party was that he could bring some of the Sunni political rivals with him – due to provincial and local considerations.

Author: Alireza Majidi, expert on West Asian issues

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