The Iraqi parliament is now officially on vacation. Though if you ask me, they have been on vacation since they took office.
So, if you are an Iraqi legislator, what do you do on vacation? Well, the largest Sunni political bloc has decided that they will leave Prime Minister al-Maliki's government.
The Accordance Front controls 44 of parliament's 275 seats and is the second bloc to quit the al-Maliki government. The first was the Shiite bloc controlled by radical imam, Muqtada al-Sadr. The biggest reasons for the Accordance Front to leave the government is that the Prime Minister has not addressed their concerns. After trying for 15 months to get their grievances addressed, the Accordance Front presented some demands to the Prime Minister a week ago that were not addressed at all. These demands included:
- A pardon for security detainees not charged with specific crimes
- the disbanding of militias
- participation of all groups in the government in dealing with security measures.
As far as demands go, these were really reasonable. For the first one, defense lawyers in the US have a saying ... either charge my client or let him go. Well, at least that's what they say on TV. On the second, if armed militias were terrorizing your neighborhood ... wouldn't you want to see them disbanded? And finally, what do you think would happen, if the Democratic controlled Congress didn't allow any Republicans on the House or Senate Intelligence Committees (the committees that have oversight on security measures)?
But al-Maliki must have thought they were bluffing and let the deadline pass.
What's next for the parliament's vacation plans? Well, it seems that the Kurds are ready to jump ship too. They were promised that a census would be done in Kirkuk, and if the Kurds were the majority, that Kirkuk would become part of the Kurdish region. So far plans for the census have not even started.
It might even be a good thing for the Kurds to leave the government. Then maybe we could get a new Prime Minister in there that could get something accomplished. On the flip side ... what if we get some one that wants to turn Iraq into a fundamentalist Theocracy?
Sphere: Related Content
