Doug Lorimer
"The Iraqi people ... have lost much of their trust in the parliament, and some are regretting their participation in the [January 30] elections", Abd al Karem al Mohammedawi, a Shiite tribal leader, told the March 30 London Financial Times after the previous day's session of Iraq's 275-member Transitional National Assembly ended in chaos.
The assembly meeting, held on March 29 in Baghdad's Green Zone — the huge compound that houses the US embassy and which is guarded by US soldiers, tanks and helicopters — was supposed to name a parliamentary speaker, and then a president and two vice-presidents, as a step toward selecting a replacement for US-appointed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
"Instead", reported the Financial Times, "the nation witnessed a display of ethnic in-fighting, backstabbing and farce before the plug was pulled on television transmission and Arabic music filled the airwaves."
Associated Press reported: "Negotiators spent much of the morning trying to convince interim President Ghazi al Yawer, a Sunni Arab, to take the speaker's post. But he refused, and is holding out for one of two vice presidential spots...
"Tensions rose as Tuesday's meeting was delayed, with politicians milling about or huddling in the halls of Baghdad's convention center. Finally called to order, it quickly disintegrated, with lawmakers lashing out at negotiators and arguing whether to delay the decision on a speaker.
"Officials, eyeing the confusion as well as television cameras broadcasting the melee, abruptly kicked out all media and closed the meeting to the public..."
Minutes later, Allawi left the session, followed by Yawer, and the assembly dispersed.
The March 30 London Telegraph reported that there is a widespread disgust at the assembly among ordinary Iraqis. It quoted the remarks of Awada Dakil, a Shiite shopkeeper who voted for the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which holds 51% of the seats in the assembly, as typical: "Nothing has changed. The only difference is that we were once ruled by a dictator and now we are ruled by clowns."
Associated Press reported on March 30 that the "assembly still needs to name a president and two deputies, who will in turn nominate a prime minister. The presidency is expected to go to Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani and the premiership to Shiite politician Ibrahim al Jaafari."
Jaafari, currently one of the US-appointed interim regime's two vice-presidents, is Sistani's brother-in-law and head of the Islamic fundamentalist Dawa party.
Under the interim constitution imposed by the US occupation regime in November 2003 and accepted by all of the parties participating in the January 30 elections, selection of a presidency council — consisting of a president and two vice-presidents — requires a two-thirds majority vote by the assembly. Selection of a prime minister requires either the unanimous nomination of the presidency council and a simple majority vote by the assembly or a two-thirds vote of the assembly. If such votes cannot be obtained, the US-appointed government headed by Yawer and Allawi will remain in office.
While Sunni Arabs make up at least 20% of Iraq's population, only 17 of the assembly's 275 members are Sunni Arabs. Following the call by the Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), an organisation of 3000 Sunni clerics, most Sunni Arabs boycotted the assembly elections in protest against the US-led occupation.
The March 28 New York Times reported that for several weeks UIA politicians and "foreign" diplomats "have been streaming like anxious pilgrims to western Baghdad, to the vast blue and gold dome of the Mother of All Battles mosque", to meet with Sheik Harith al Dari, the 64-year-old public spokesperson of the AMS. Their aim has been to persuade the AMS to endorse the transitional assembly and any government officials it selects.
The NYT reported that in a rare interview "Dari made [it] clear that he would continue to view the armed resistance as legitimate until the American military offered a clear timetable for its withdrawal — a condition very unlikely to be met".
"We ask all wise men in the American nation to advise the administration to leave this country", Dari told the NYT. "It would save much blood and suffering for the Iraqi and American people."
The demand for a clear timetable for the withdrawal of US occupation troops from Iraq, which was a major plank of the UIA's election campaign but which its leaders have since dropped, has also been made by the followers of rebel cleric Moqtada al Sadr, the most popular Shiite figure after Sistani.
On March 26, Agence France Presse reported that Sadr spokesperson Sheikh Nasser al Saedi, speaking to Shiite worshippers at the Grand Mosque in Kufa, south of Baghdad, called for "a million-strong demonstration to demand a timetable for the end of the occupation".
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 6, 2005.
Visit the