Fighting Over Who Heads Important Political Alliance Threatens to Split Shiite MPs
At a time when the country badly needs
stability, infighting about who will lead the country’s biggest
political alliance is a sign of local MPs’ badly timed power games.
6.08.2015 | Baghdad
In September 2014, senior Shiite Muslim
politician Ibrahim al-Jaafari was named the leader of the Iraqi
Parliament’s largest bloc of Shiite Muslim parties. The bloc is known as
the National Iraqi Alliance and members include all the major political
parties made up of mostly Shiite Muslim interests, such as the Islamic
Supreme Council of Iraq, the Sadrist movement
and the State of Law alliance. The country’s current Prime Minister,
Haider al-Abadi, is a member of the Dawa party, which in turn is the
cornerstone of the State of Law bloc, and therefore also of the National
Iraqi Alliance, or NIA; so was the country’s last Prime Minister, Nouri
al-Maliki.
The problem is that al-Jaafari is also
Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and he must be replaced as leader of
the National Iraqi Alliance.
But this has become a problem: Just because
most of the Shiite Muslim-majority parties are in the NIA doesn’t mean
they always agree. During the last elections, at the end of 2014, as MPS
wrangled to form a government there were major divisions within the
NIA. Alliance members had to try and decide on a new Prime Minister for
the country and al-Maliki, of the State of Law bloc, insisted he should
retain the job despite what many saw as his poor performance over the
past few years. Other Alliance members insisted that he didn’t stay in
the job and threatened to withdraw their support from the bloc if he
did. In the end, another member of the State of Law coalition, the far
more conciliatory Haider al-Abadi, was nominated Prime Minister and
things settled down again.
But now the same parties within the NIA are
fighting once again – only this time their argument is not about the
Prime Minister-ship, but about who leads the NIA. Some analysts have
suggested that leadership of the NIA is a purely symbolic position but
the infighting seems to indicate that it is actually considered more
important than that.
Once again it is the State of Law bloc that is in conflict with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, or ISCI.
The State of Law bloc apparently considers
that the removal of al-Maliki from the country’s top job has diminished
its influence within the NIA. That is despite the fact that Prime
Minister al-Abadi is also a member of the bloc. Currently the State of
Law bloc are wanting to give the job to another of their senior members,
Ali al-Adib.
Meanwhile the ISCI believes that their
party’s leader, Ammar al-Hakim, should be heading the NIA. They say that
the job is rightly his because the Alliance was actually created by
al-Hakim’s father, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Additionally it would only be a
fair way of splitting Iraq’s top political jobs, they say – the State of
Law bloc already has the prime minister’s chair, why shouldn’t the ISCI
then get the leadership of the NIA?, they argue.
Al-Hakim hasn’t officially nominated
himself for the job but he has said a few things that indicate that if
the issue isn’t resolved to his satisfaction, certain steps would be
taken. Reading between the lines of al-Hakim’s various comments,
observers say that this might mean that the ISCI could withdraw from the
National Iraqi Alliance, or that the Alliance could be reformed to
leave the State of Law bloc out of it.
An MP affiliated with the ISCI, Salim
al-Muslimawi, told NIQASH that in fact, the ISCI prefers to keep the
National Iraqi Alliance united, and that stability is especially
important in the face of the challenges that Iraq currently faces.
“Any suggestions the ISCI makes aim to
maintain the Alliance’s unity and strengthen it,” al-Muslimawi stated.
“But if a certain bloc wants to nominate a member for leadership of the
Alliance but they are not necessarily qualified to lead, then the ISCI
must take appropriate steps by itself.”
Al-Muslimawi also hinted that, as they did
when the issue of the new Prime Minister was being debated, that the
Sadrist movement would support the ISCI.
The State of Law coalition believes that
another way of resolving the issue might be to organise an election
process to choose the head of the Alliance. Several other parties within
the Alliance have agreed that this may be the best way forward.
The other option might be to try and find
some sort of consensus internally, within the Alliance,” suggests Abbas
al-Bayati, a senior member of the State of Law bloc; al-Bayati also
added that he didn’t think this issue should be a problem for the
Alliance
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