Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki delays unveiling new government

It will be a delicate balancing act for Mr Maliki

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has not unveiled his new cabinet, which was expected on Monday, amid ongoing disputes among Iraq's rival factions.
It is the latest setback in efforts to form a unity government in Iraq, nine months after parliamentary elections.

Up to half the ministerial posts were undecided, as party leaders wrangled over allocations, officials said.
It is not clear when parliament will vote on the cabinet list, but the constitutional deadline is Saturday.

Power plays
There are 37 posts in all, and dividing up portfolios among Iraq's diverse and often mutually antagonistic factions has been the focus of the past month's political wrangling.
Mr Maliki had been expected on Monday to name his entire cabinet, except for three sensitive posts linked to national security, but parliament was adjourned without receiving any list.

Iraq government deadlock
March: Elections give two-seat lead to former PM Iyad Allawi - not enough to form a government
June: Parliament meets for 20 minutes, MPs sworn in but delay formal return to work to give time for coalition talks
August: Iraq's Supreme Court orders parliament to re-convene
November: Power-sharing deal agreed. Shia bloc to get premiership, Sunnis to get speaker plus new role for Mr Allawi. Kurds keep presidency.
Iraq's great balancing act
Profile: Nouri al-Maliki

The new cabinet is expected to include all the major factions, including the Kurds, Shia and Sunni Arabs.
The speaker of parliament, Osama al-Nujaifi, said a vote could come as soon as Tuesday.
But other lawmakers have vowed to reject any vote on a partial list, saying they will wait until the full cabinet is finalised and the horse-trading over.

It will be a delicate balancing act for Mr Maliki, who has to reconcile various Shia groups, as well as the Sunnis and the Kurds, to put together government of national unity that has at least a chance of being able to work together, says the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Baghdad.

But the real test of this coalition will come when these newly-appointed ministers get down to work, and start to tackle the country's many problems - from neglected and crumbling infrastructure to continuing violence and instability, our correspondent says.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12035746?print=true

Iraq halfway toward forming a cabinet – nine months after election

Iraqi parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifi (R) shakes hands with Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, upon his arrival at the parliament building in Baghdad December 20.(Mohammed Ameen/Reuters)

The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com

More details should emerge later today. But there are indications that forming a new government -- presented as a done deal weeks ago -- still has major hurdles, which points to the country's uncertain future.

By Dan Murphy, Staff writer posted December 20, 2010 at 12:06 pm EST

A little news from Iraq this morning, just as a reminder that it's nine and months and counting since the last elections and a government still hasn't been formed. It turns out that the "breakthrough" deal to form a government announced over a month ago isn't yet much of a deal at all. Today, Prime Minister Nouri al--Maliki is going to release a partial cabinet list, according to his spokesman.

What posts won't be announced? The Interior Ministry, the Defense Ministry, and the National Security job – also known as the most important jobs in the government.
It also appears that fighting is going on over the jobs that are less important from the standpoint of dealing with the still simmering insurgency. The BBC quotes Iraqi politicians as saying that up to half of the cabinet posts remain undecided. That's a big number. Iraq currently has 37 cabinet-level positions (compare that to 21 in the UK), an attempt at creating more jobs to divide up in the first place.

IN PICTURES: Christians in Iraq
These arguments are largely about money and the power that flows from it. Controlling the right ministry in the new Iraq creates enormous patronage opportunities and revenue-generating ability. The fight is over how big a piece of the pie Maliki will have to give up in exchange for continued political support.

The Iraqi Constitution says the cabinet must be decided by Saturday -- but that's doesn't make it as iron-clad a deadline as it might seem. The US-written constitution has been repeatedly ignored over the years, particularly surrounding government formation, It's both likely that the full cabinet won't be seated on Saturday, and that it won't matter very much.

As a reminder that Iraq remains a dangerous place, Iraqi security forces said they killed three Libyan sucide bombers planning attacks on Christian targets in the northern city of Mosul for Christmas. Iraq's ancient Christian minority has been repeatedly targeted this year, and the community is dwindling as those with the finances and contacts to leave Iraq flee the country.
"The problem is that many political blocs are all asking for the same post at the same time. Because of this, there is still no agreement," Khaled al-Assadi, a Shiite MP close to Maliki, told AFP today.

Of course, the highly sectarian nature of the post-election bargaining, with Maliki's Islamist Shiite bloc lining up with the still separatist-minded Kurds against Iraq's more secular and/or Sunni political currents, is cause for concern – and an indication that Iraq is likely to remain quite a violent, volatile place for some time to come.

All this leaves aside actually governing. There have been no indications over the past nine months that Iraq's ideological and sectarian divisions have been narrowed. The inability to make compromises over cabinet posts points to an even tougher road ahead – when legislators will confront the emotional and financially fraught issues of the ethnically divided and oil-rich city of Kirkuk, how Iraq's relationship with Iran should develop, and more general questions that touch on ethnic reconciliation.

The bloody civil war Iraq experienced in 2006-2007 may be over, but the bitterness and mistrust remain.

Iraq - The Seriously Time-Consuming Scenario

Posted by Reidar Visser on Friday, 17 September 2010 17:59
http://gulfanalysis.wordpress.com/2010/09/17/the-seriously-time-consuming-scenario/#comments


Multiple news reports out of Iraq suggest some forces in Iraqiyya are aiming for a deal that could either prolong the government-formation process quite considerably, or end up with the disintegration of Iraqiyya itself.

In the outlined deal, Adel Abd al-Mahdi of ISCI would become prime minister, a Kurd would get the powerful speakership of parliament, and Ayad Allawi would be president – a position that currently has no privileges after the termination of the transitional tripartite presidency that was in force from 2005 to 2010 – that is, except fast cars and a nice office.

Of course, any such deal would still take some time to complete, since Adel Abd al-Mahdi would have to be the candidate of the biggest bloc in parliament and Iraqiyya and INA would have to formally merge for it to work (INA would first have to secede from what is currently called the National Alliance of itself and State of Law, and it should be noted that so far only Iraqiyya politicians are talking publicly about the deal). And apparently, some in Iraqiyya are hoping that the presidency will be strengthened, through constitutional revision prior to the seating of the government!

Do these leaders – and America – realise what kind of can of worms will open if constitutional revision is attempted prior to or simultaneously with the government-formation process? But then again, it seems some Iraqiyya leaders are prepared to go to any length in order to avoid sharing power with Nuri al-Maliki.