The Iraqi Prosecutor General Asks the Iraqi Parliament to Replace President Talabani

Much more will likely be written about this in coming days and weeks, but it is already now worth taking note of a letter sent from the Iraqi prosecutor general to the presidency of the Iraqi parliament, asking them to replace Iraq’s current president Jalal Talabani due to his prolonged absence for health reasons.

The letter was first reported by media leaks, but it is now published on the website of the Iraqi judiciary, meaning it is definitely official and enjoys the support of the judiciary as an institution.

The question of when, during a period of prolonged absence, the Iraqi president needs to be replaced is not well defined by the Iraqi constitution. Nor is there bylaws for the presidency that govern this question. The major issue concerns interpretation of article 72, which says a new president must be elected if the incumbent president “vacates” his post for any reason.

The question then is, who should decide that the president’s absence is so prolonged that it satisfies the criteria for replacement as per article 72? The Iraqi judiciary today gives us the answer by referring to article 1 of the law of the state prosecution service, dating from the Baath era. That law, slightly amended in 2006,  gives the prosecution service the job of defending the order of the state, and it is presumably in such a capacity it now deems itself capable of intervening.

This latest step by the Iraqi judiciary raises the question of whether replacing Talabani may finally have received the support of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who has seen Talabani as a friend among the Kurds, and whose own political ally  Khudayr al-Khuzaie has effectively controlled the presidency in the absence of Talabani and with the other vice-presidents either resigned (Abd al-Mahdi) or in exile (Hashemi).

Barham Saleh, also from Talabani’s PUK,  is reported as a possible replacement candidate. The Iraqi parliament will vote on a replacement; the aim is a two-thirds majority but if no one reaches that level, a simple-majority run-off vote will be held.

New Law Limits the Terms of Iraq’s Prime Minister

A couple of points regarding the law on term limits for the “three presidencies” passed by the Iraqi parliament on Saturday.

• The law limits the three presidencies (president proper, speaker of parliament and prime minister) to two terms, whether successive or not.
• Whereas a limitation on the presidency to two terms is prescribed in the Iraqi constitution for the presidency proper, no such restriction appears with regard to the premiership. Maliki supporters is calling the law unconstitutional for this reason. It may be more correct to see the law as “extra-constitutional” (since the constitution is mute) but that does not mean the supreme court will not find problems with it.
• Another noteworthy problem is that the law is a “proposed law” rather than a legislative project. In 2010, the Iraqi supreme court struck down another such “proposed law”, arguing that parliament had no right to initiate legislation other than making a proposal that would then have to pass through parliament. The supreme court may opt to strike down the bill simply for that reason.
• Note that rejection of the bill is not automatic: It must be specifically challenged before the supreme court. Maliki will probably lose no time in doing so, but it should be added that at least a couple of dozens of “proposals” have indeed been passed into law apparently without such challenges over the past few years, and quite a few others are on their way. The sheer volume of this legislative action suggests the Iraqi supreme court may gradually find it harder and harder to defend what is arguably a somewhat contrived ruling.
• It is noteworthy, too, that the law shows the Iraqi parliament can be effective when it wants. The bill was introduced, read and passed all in the single month of January.
• The bill passed with 170 votes. That’s of course more than the magical 163 threshold that was not achieved when the sacking of Maliki was on the agenda last spring. Nonetheless, the bill is so clearly directed against Maliki personally that it should be taken to mean any other vote in parliament other than a non-confidence motion is potentially problematic to him. Maliki may hide behind supreme court activism that effectively confines the ability of parliament to legislate introduce bills or hold ministers accountable for the purpose of sacking them. But he needs to get a budget passed and handle acute tensions with the Kurdish federal government, some of which require legislative agreement. Maliki cannot survive merely on the basis of an amenable judiciary and populist gestures of an increasingly sectarian nature.

The Iraqi Parliament Moves against Maliki on Several Fronts

Reports out of the Iraqi parliament are getting more and more extraordinary. The summary of events relating to its session on Monday is no exception.

Among the items on the agenda that were taken up for debate was nothing less than the “questioning of the minister of sports in absentia”. The sports minister, a Turkmen Shia Islamist and an ally of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, has been accused of misconduct relating to the affairs of his ministry, including a major sports city project. The questioning went ahead headed by a Sadrist, whereas Maliki’s minister of parliamentary affairs called for legal procedures before the federal supreme court (relating to recent limitations on the rights of parliament to question ministers) to run their course before any questioning.

In another challenge to Maliki, a second reading for a bill intended to limit the terms of the “three presidencies”(i.e. the president of the republic, the “president of the cabinet” which is Arabic for the prime minister, and “the president of the national assembly”, i.e. the parliament speaker). The move, initiated with a first reading just a week ago, is seen as an obvious attempt to curb Maliki’s ambitions for a third term. It is noteworthy that whereas term limits for the president of the republic exist in the constitution, there is nothing in the Iraqi charter that prevents a prime minister for continuing for unlimited periods as long as he wins parliamentary support to accede to the position each time. Maliki allies have pointed out this, and claim that any attempt to impose limits without fixing the constitution itself (that requires supermajorities) would be unconstitutional. It is also unclear how the federal supreme court would deal with any passage of the law since it is a mere “proposal” rather than a cabinet-sponsored “project”, a legal distinction that limits the possibilities for the Iraqi parliament to initiate legislation.

Finally, Parliament Speaker Usama al-Nujayfi formally communicated a decision by the presidency of the parliament to withhold the voting rights of Maliki ally Hanan al-Fatlawi until she has apologized formally to Nujayfi for insults thrown at him. It is noteworthy that the parliament presidency is dominated by Nujayfi (Iraqiyya) and his two deputies – a Kurd and a Sadrist. In the case of Fatlawi, at least, these forces are standing firm against Maliki, and it will be interesting to see whether Maliki will use the upcoming annual budget law to expand his parliament support base somewhat, or whether he will persevere with his current strategy of a de facto minority government as the local elections of 20 April come closer.

Provincial Elections Law Revisions in Iraq

At a time when most Iraqi politicians seem to consider the cabinet crisis to be over,  attention is increasingly turning to the next local elections, scheduled for early 2013. More and more, it is being suggested that major political reform may well end up on the back burner again, with a decision on the electoral commission composition perhaps the most prominent issue of the day (it is also on the agenda as parliament meets today).

Yesterday finally saw a vote on revisions to the provincial electoral law that originally dates back to 2008. Symptomatically, perhaps, the revisions have yet to be published on the parliament website! But at least some features are known from press reports.

The problem with the revised law is that the Iraqi supreme court has already deemed it unconstitutional, at least if press reports about the contents are true. This is so because the revised law reportedly keeps the principle of allotting surplus seats to winning parties only, using the largest remainder principle. In 2010, the supreme court, based on a request from the small communist party, specifically ruled this arrangement “undemocratic” (and therefore unconstitutional), and demanded change to a more proportional allocation formula. Apparently, this aspect – which after all was one of the main reasons there was a need to change the law in the first place – was conveniently forgotten by Iraqi politicians yesterday. In other words, once more Iraq is saddled with a law that will be unconstitutional from the get-go.

Other reported changes concern the allotment of additional minority seats for Fayli Kurds and Turkmens (the latter reportedly in Baghdad). Again, this may be indicative of a trend in Iraqi politics. The previous iteration of the law only gave true micro-minorities (Yazidis, Christians, Shabak etc.) seats in particular governorates, whereas medium-sized minorities like the Turkmens and the Fayli Kurds were left with the option of mobilizing within the framework of the ideologically defined (non-ethnic) parties. Inevitably, one gets the impression that the more Iraqis are encouraged to vote in closed ethnic constituencies, the smaller the prospect for the development of a truly national political fabric. With recent moves to expand the size of the electoral commission, it is conceivable that this trend will only continue to grow further.

Meanwhile, one interesting aspect of the decision yesterday on electoral law changes is the political dynamic. It was reportedly a deal between the two biggest coalitions, Iraqiyya and State of Law, that led to agreement. These two groups will both benefit from maintaining the current, largest-remainder for winning blocs principle regarding the “surplus” seats. For their part, Shiite parties outside Prime Minister Maliki’s bloc like Fadila and the Sadrists have already been prominent in criticizing yesterday’s parliament decision. A major elephant in the room, of course, was the disputed city of Kirkuk, which never held elections in 2009, and where the issue of ethnic quota seats remains a big problem.

This is an ironic reminder, then, about how State of Law and Iraqiyya could have got things done in parliament if their leaders could just hate each other a little less. Symptomatically, perhaps, when the two finally did vote together in parliament, it was on an issue that is likely to maximize their own powers in the crudest sense imaginable, at the expense of the smaller forces in Iraqi politics.

The Syrian Crisis and Its Repercussions for Erbil-Baghdad Relations

One of the interesting aspects of the crisis in Syria is the way Syria’s Kurds are navigating between regional power brokers in Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq. In particular, there seems to be a degree of tension surrounding the relationship between the largely pro-Turkish regional government of the Iraqi Kurds and Syrian Kurds who are seeking the support of Erbil but are not necessarily quite so supportive of Turkey.

So far, no decisive policy seems to have emerged among Syria’s Kurds in this respect. As for the spillover impact on the Iraqi scene, the Syrian crisis has so far served to further strain relations between the Iraqi Kurds and the central government in Baghdad. Due to tension in border areas with Syria, central government Iraqi forces have been seeking access to areas controlled by the Kurds, and this, in turn, has aggravated the conflict between Erbil and Baghdad.

For the first time, the Kurdish peshmerga ministry has now published a constitutional defence of its position. In a letter directed to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, the Kurds enumerate four constitutional articles that they consider Baghdad are violating when they are seeking access to the Kurdish areas: Articles 9, 61, 111 (some sources say 11 but that makes no sense) and 121.

Article 9 of the Iraqi constitution deals with the Iraqi army. It is one of the few constitutional provisions to specifically demand proportional representation on an ethno-sectarian basis (quotas), and this is conceivably what the Kurds are complaining about, even though there are large numbers of Kurds serving in the Iraqi army controlled by Baghdad.

Article 61 deals with parliamentary powers, and presumably the Kurdish objection relates to the failure of government to have leading military officials confirmed by parliament. This is a real problem, although there are reports that the government has lately sent a list to parliament which is now awaiting approval.

Article 111, if correctly cited, deals with oil ownership (“Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people in all the governorates and regions”)  and is presumably a general criticism of Baghdad regarding the longstanding dispute about whether Erbil or Baghdad should conclude deals with foreign oil companies.

Article 121 specifically gives federal regions the right to organize internal security including “guards of the region” which is commonly seen as the standard reference to the Kurdish peshmerga militia which is now the official internal army of the Kurdish region.

All in all, whereas it seems clear that the central government may need to make some improvements as regards Kurdish representation in the Iraqi army (article 9) and getting parliamentary approval of army officials (article 61), it is hard to see how article 121 could override the exclusive prerogative of Baghdad when it comes to managing national security and external defence  as set out in article 110-2, where “borders” are specifically mentioned. Indeed, article 121 itself at the outset explicitly stipulates that the powers given to the region should not usurp exclusive prerogatives of the central government as specified in article 110.

What this whole issue brings to the forefront, of course, is that whereas Iraq on paper may be a federation, it is in practice a confederacy in which the Kurdish entity appears to be torn between seeking independence and de facto Turkish overlordship. The Syrian crisis is likely to make these tensions more acute, given the apparent greater scepticism of the Syrian Kurds when it comes to accepting the idea of a substantial role for Turkey in deciding their destiny. As a consequence, it is possible that the autonomous Iraqi Kurds, too, will finally have to be more specific and concrete about where exactly they are heading and when.

How to Dissolve the Iraqi Parliament

I am no expert in Arabic grammar, but the latest confusion caused by a threat by Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Maliki to dissolve parliament is so simple to clear up that even I can do it.

Apparently, the culprit are English versions of the Iraqi constitution and in particular a mistranslation of article 64 which governs dissolution of parliament. It  should be emphasized at first that English versions of the Iraqi constitution cannot be relied upon since there is not an official one. Their only value is that they may be faster to skim through for an English-speaking reader if something needs to be located fast, whereupon the relevant part of the Arabic version should be consulted.

Here is the relevant clause:

يُحل مجلس النواب، بالاغلبية المطلقة لعدد اعضائه، بناءً على طلبٍ من ثلث اعضائه، او طلبٍ من رئيس مجلس الوزراء وبموافقة رئيس الجمهورية

A reasonable translation would read roughly as follows:

“Parliament is dissolved by an absolute majority of its members, based upon a request from a third of its members or a request from the prime minister with the consent of the president.”

Now, possibly due to the insertion of several commas in the Arabic versions, some take this to read this as “parliament is dissolved by an absolute majority… or by a request from the prime minister with the consent of the president.”

That, of course, is dramatically different since it would leave the executive in a far stronger position vis-a-vis the legislature. But is it right? Thankfully, we do not need to rely on non-existing Arabic punctuation rules to serve as arbiter in this case. Instead, relax, breathe easy, and look for prepositions in the rump sentence in the case an attempt is made to link the dissolution of parliament directly to the prime ministerial request:

يُحل مجلس النواب او طلبٍ من رئيس مجلس الوزراء وبموافقة رئيس الجمهورية

“Parliament is dissolved or a request from the prime minister and the president.” The preposition “by” is lacking. This sentence wouldn’t have passed a secondary school exam and it cannot be the Iraqi constitution. If the intention had been to give the prime minister the right to dissolve parliament with the mere consent of the president, the relevant clause would instead have read aw bi talab min rais al-wuzara. But it doesn’t. It just says aw talab min rais al-wuzara. In this case, the preposition “by” (bi) is exclusively linked to the “absolute majority” of the parliament. This makes it clear that the prime ministerial involvement relates to the procedure for introducing the motion about parliamentary dissolution to parliament itself, which in turn will make the big decision about dissolving the assembly.

At any rate, at this point there is nothing to suggest that Maliki’s comments should be seen as anything more than a threat (“he feels forced/under pressure to call early elections”). There is no indication that there is even presidential agreement to introduce the motion to parliament, and in any case Maliki would probably be unlikely to win it. He probably knows it; why would Iraqi parliamentarians risk their own privileges?

The more worrying point is the tone of Maliki’s comments after meeting with Ibrahim al-Jaafari last Sunday, asking parliament to clean up its act before questioning him. There is much to suggest that Maliki may have a stronger parliamentary base than his opponents claim, but language of the kind he used over the weekend may soon lead to the evaporation over any additional support he got recently from disgruntled Iraqiyya MPs unhappy with the no confidence proposal.

Much as his enemies appear unable to muster the 163 votes needed to unseat him, Maliki needs to understand that the implication of this is not that he himself controls 163 votes in the Iraqi parliament.

Maliki Attempts Pre-Emptive Action Against Nujayfi

Amid continued threats about a forthcoming questioning of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, allies of the Iraqi premier have embarked upon what seems to be a pre-emptive move: A formal request for a parliamentary debate on the performance of parliament speaker Usama al-Nujayfi, with a focus on alleged “constitutional infractions”.

To some extent, the Maliki-Nujayfi struggle has the characteristics of a tit for tat escalation between Maliki’s Shia Islamist State of Law bloc and Nujayfi’s secular and Sunni-backed Iraqiyya. True, this is not the first time there has been tension between the two. But it was mainly after the issue of a Maliki no confidence vote came on the agenda earlier this spring that the idea of sacking Nujayfi as parliament speaker became a prominent issue.

One aspect to keep in mind regarding a potential attempt to oust Nujayfi is that the modalities for getting rid of the parliament speaker are not covered in the Iraqi constitution. Instead, the process is governed by the law on the replacement of deputies. The relevant clause was adopted in a revision of that law in 2007 and the relevant paragraph says parliament can sack its speaker with an absolute majority based on a reasoned request from a third of its members.

In today’s Iraqi parliament, those numerical requirements translate into 163 MPs for sacking the speaker (same as for sacking the PM) and 109 for calling the vote. It is noteworthy that there is in some ways thus a stricter requirement for introducing a no confidence vote against the speaker than against the PM (the latter can be called by 65 members following questioning initiated by 25 MPs). It is noteworthy also that the request from State of Law that has been filed is not an outright call for a vote on his ouster. Rather they are talking about a debate “preparatory to his sacking”. No more than 25 signatures are required for this (61-7-b of the constitution).

Maliki allies say they will ask Nujayfi about his alleged interference in the Exxon Mobil issue in Nineveh as well as supposed “sectarian partition schemes” for Iraq. It may well be possible that State of Law can successfully call the vote for sacking Nujayfi by garnering the required 109 signatures for a vote. To succeed in reaching the 163 threshold for actually replacing him, however, they need a lot more votes than they currently have. In particular, many of those Iraqiyya deputies who supported Maliki on disputed territories may be reluctant to go as far as voting down their former ally Nujayfi. Indeed, the somewhat cumbersome approach of calling for a debate before a no confidence vote on the speaker (when no such preceding debate is legally speaking required before he can be sacked) seems to indicate that State of Law at present may be unable to even reach the 109 mark needed for a direct, straightforward vote on Nujayfi.

Perhaps the most important gain for Maliki in this relates to initiative. It is remarkable that despite all the talk about questioning Maliki, a formal request for doing so has yet to be filed. This in turn means that the issue of Nujayfi’s own status as parliament speaker is now higher up on the agenda and the parliament presidency will need to come up with reasons if they want to procrastinate the debate about Nujayfi.

Meanwhile, the most promising piece of news from the first session of parliament in the new parliamentary cycle that began on Saturday doubtless relates to numbers: No less than 248 out of 325 deputies showed up. This is actually very high for Iraq; hopefully it signifies a new trend. In today’s session parliament there are no major votes on the agenda but attendance figures are once more reported in the same high range around 250. If this trend stabilises, it could mean more in the long run than the continued war of words between Iraqiyya and State of Law.

Question Time!

Critics of Iraq’s prime minister Nuri al-Maliki must have realized it late yesterday, if not earlier: President Jalal Talabani is not going to call for a no confidence vote in Maliki. A letter from Talabani’s office made that perfectly clear, leaving Maliki’s critics with only one constitutional option for unseating the premier – a questioning before parliament, to be followed in a subsequent and separate session by a no confidence vote.

In theory, holding the questioning itself should be relatively easy. A mere 25 deputies can ask the parliament presidency (all of which is currently anti-Maliki) to summon the prime minister. The threshold for asking for a subsequent no confidence vote is also modest: A fifth of deputies, i.e. 65 deputies in the current 325-member assembly.

What should they ask about? This is where the problems begin. True to form, the critics of Maliki have reportedly formed no less than three committees to concoct nasty questions to be put to the premier in the parliamentary chamber. One story claims Bahaa al-Aaraji, the Sadrist, will lead the charge! Maliki’s allies cannot be any worse than this and have promised catalogues of files of alleged criminal wrongdoing on the part of Maliki’s enemies that will be revealed during the questioning, thereby changing the dynamics radically – or so goes their scenario, anyway.

Few critics of Maliki appear to have taken much notice of a potentially fateful ruling by the Iraqi supreme court some weeks ago which severely limited the ability of parliament to question ministers. Essentially, it said that in order for ministers to be summoned before parliament, there had to be a specific criminal charge or constitutional infraction for which to hold them accountable. The ruling amounted to nothing less than a rewriting of the Iraqi constitution since no such strings are attached there, but Iraqi media have been slow to respond. Importantly, whether one agrees with the ruling or not, it applies to ministers and prime ministers alike since they are all treated on an equal footing in the relevant article of the Iraqi constitution (61-7-c).

The ruling was given in the context of the potential questioning of a Maliki ally – Ali al-Adib who is minister for higher education – but some Maliki supporters are already discussing the potential questioning of the prime minister in a similar vein. The obvious question is, will the issues Maliki’s critics want to raise satisfy the new and more restrictive criteria of the supreme court for a parliamentary questioning (istijwab)?

Generally speaking, questions about corruption or the failure to provide services are unlikely to succeed simply on procedural grounds.

The subjects most likely to meet with approval as suitable subjects for questioning are constitutional infractions on the part of Maliki on very specific issues. Two stand out.

The first is the failure of the Iraqi cabinet, since 2010, to honour the requests for federalism referendums in numerous Iraqi governorates, including Basra, Wasit, Salahaddin and Diyala. This is a very clear violation of the law on forming regions that was adopted in 2006 and promulgated in 2008 as the implementation of article 118 of the constitution and which specifically charges the cabinet with putting the referendums in motion as soon as the requests have been received. At least in Sunni-dominated Diyala and parts of Salahaddin, the pro-federal currents seem to remain alive and as long as the federalists remembered to lodge a formal request for a referendum (alongside all the unnecessary bluster abut “declaring” themselves regions) there is plenty of reasons to ask Maliki what happened to those constitutionally mandated referendums. Article 78 of the constitution charges the PM with administering his cabinet so this is his responsibility.

A second subject that could count as a constitutional infraction by Maliki is the failure to have upper-level military officers by parliament, as demanded by article 80-5. Again, the PM has a special responsibility as administrator of the cabinet.

Whether any such questioning would succeed in a successful no confidence vote remains unclear. For a long time, the numbers in favour of a direct no confidence vote seemed exaggerated and masked the possibility that they might fall just short of the critical 163 absolute-majority mark. Additionally, if any of the two specific constitutional infractions discussed above come into play, Maliki may still be able to win over additional support. For example, on federalism, while the constitution is clear, Maliki might well be able to successfully use arguments of national unity in the assembly in the same way as he has used them in the governorates (where he has been able to mobilise Sunni tribes on an anti-federal basis and translate this into parliamentary support). In other words, Maliki’s implicit argument for violating the constitution for the sake of national unity may curry favour with at least some MPs.

The failure to have high-level military officials confirmed by parliament is an issue which more directly touches on the parliamentary oversight role that lies at the heart of any definition of democracy.  Again, though, Maliki might conceivably succeed in winning over at least some potential critics by referring to expediency and the abysmal efficiency record of the Iraqi parliament.

Whatever happens, it is to be hoped that the no confidence vote, if requested, is allowed to go ahead as long as there is adherence to the basic constitutional modalities. Whoever wins this process will come out strengthened if the rules of the game are followed as much as possible.

Parliament is scheduled to meet again on 21 June.

Just Exactly How Many Iraqi MPs Are Ready to Vote Out Maliki?

Late last night, Iraq’s president, Jalal Talabani, broke his long silence on exactly what is going on with the request for a no confidence vote against the country’s embattled premier, Nuri al-Maliki.

For a “clarification”, Talabani’s latest announcement was relatively convoluted. Still, there is now at least a few more pieces of information available. Firstly, Talabani is aware that the signature collection does not form part of the constitutional procedure for a presidential call for a no confidence vote. Good. Nonetheless, he has apparently asked for the signatures in advance in some kind of “intermediary” gesture to the opposing camps. His aim has probably been to establish whether there was basis for a no confidence vote to succeed.

In this more limited capacity – as an “opinion poll” if you will – the exercise is of course valid. It also has some interest for predicting the likely outcome of a vote in parliament. As said before, though, there are methodological issues here, relating in particular to the difference between collecting written signatures via email and actually having people come and vote in the parliament chamber. This aspect is salient given the overall low attendance level in the Iraqi parliament. Additionally, there is of course the question of whether Talabani’s office is up to the best standards in terms of analyzing this material. The public statement erroneously refers to “quorum” (nisab) instead of an “absolute majority” as the required threshold (they are both at 163 but no excuses for the confusion by the presidential “guardian of the constitution”) . We can only hope there are no more errors in the press release.

To the numbers reported by Talabani, then. Most wire services on Saturday said only 160 MPs had signed (thus falling just short of the required 163 needed to unseat Maliki) but a fine reading of the presidential statement  shows that is not necessarily the case. Instead, Talabani essentially gives us something of a mathematical equation:

-  160 signatures from Iraqiyya, the Kurdistan Alliance, the Sadrists and independent MPs were initially presented.

-  An unspecified number of signatures from the PUK (Talabani’s own Kurdish party) were subsequently added. This must be more than 3 (since at one point there were more than 163 signatures) but less than 12 (the total of PUK MPs in parliament, assuming none had signed off in the initial batch of 160).

-   Subsequently, 11 signatures were withdrawn and 2 were “suspended” (taliq, this is evidently so strange that even the Arabic statement uses quotation marks).

-  The remaining total is less than 163. (It should be noted that there is no word about falsification of signatures – a subject which consumed a good deal of heated exchanges in the press last week.)

Let us for the sake of the argument assume that the unknown variable here – the PUK signatures –  were at their highest possible value, i.e. 12 (the total of PUK representatives in the Iraqi parliament). That would leave us with a maximum of 160+12-11-2 signatures by people ready to vote down Maliki, i.e. 159. This is 4 less than the required threshold of 163,  in line with conservative estimates presented earlier in the week, and significantly lower than numbers reported by Maliki critics (ranging from 176 to 200 plus).  At the very maximum, there may at one point have been 172 signatures according to the Talabani statement. Add to this the fact that it is easier to make people sign via email than show up in parliament. (Maliki lawyer Tareq Harb appears to have his own count, arriving at 146 but apparently not counting the PUK signatures that were added at one point.)

The Maliki critics who met again at Erbil today have plenty to think about. They are apparently considering a plan B consisting of the second route to a no confidence vote: A questioning of the parliament (called for by 25 deputies) followed by a no confidence vote called for by 65 deputies. This approach is not without its problems: It takes longer, the supreme court recently issued a very biased ruling limiting the right to question ministers (it has received zero attention by the Iraqi press but was almost certainly calculated to also apply to the eventuality of a prime ministerial no confidence vote) and the support of President Talabani and his Kurdish PUK party would not be a given. In any case, its proponents should now stop trying to convince the Iraqi public about their number of signatures (today, Iraqiyya leaders boast they have 10 more up the sleeve and there are even reports about another futile attempt to send one more letter to Talabani to convince him). Instead, if they truly want a vote they should simply begin making specific steps towards a questioning of Maliki in parliament (which begins with a request by 25 deputies to the parliament speaker, Usama al-Nujayfi of Iraqiyya, to summon Maliki to the national assembly).

Talabani does not rule out this second option, of course. Indeed, in calling for the “national meeting” – the gathering of leaders sought by Maliki instead of a no confidence vote – he says this can be useful whether the premier is ousted or not. Maliki critics should however take notice how firmly Talabani asserts his own right to appoint any replacement in line with article 76 of the constitution by which is it his job to identify the candidate of the biggest bloc in parliament. If the Shiite alliance breaks down as a result of a no confidence vote in Maliki and the remnants fail to form alliances with Iraqiyya and the Kurds, that might in theory well be Maliki’s own State of Law bloc – and its premier candidate Maliki himself.

How to Sack an Iraqi Prime Minister

There has been lot of talk about signatures in Iraq lately. Most of it has been focused on a supposed list of signatories who asked President Jalal Talabani to stage a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Late Monday, both Maliki and Talabani confirmed the existence of some kind of petition addressed to Talabani; Maliki asked Talabani to hand the document over to the judiciary to check it for possible forgeries.

There are lots of problems regarding these alleged signatures, both at the technical level and in the broader constitutional context. Technically speaking, no complete document of signatures has been published so far. Most press reports deal with aggregate numbers of deputies for each of the blocs opposing Maliki, with only a dozen of independent deputies specified by name. Numbers of signatories vary from 176 to 200 plus. Several of the named deputies, minority representatives and one Kurdish party (Goran) have subsequently protested at their inclusion or specifically rejected the idea of a no confidence vote in Maliki.

More importantly though, these signatures – whether they actually exist or not – have no legal or constitutional meaning.

There are two ways of asking for a no confidence vote under the Iraqi constitution.

Firstly, the president can do so. Importantly, in that case he can do so simply because he feels it is the right thing to do. It doesn’t matter whether he has the signature of every single deputy in the Iraqi parliament or none; it is his decision alone. It should be stressed that there is no need for the president to present any compelling rationale for having the vote.

Secondly, a fifth of the deputies in parliament (65 MPs) can also ask for a questioning of the PM (istijwab) followed by a no confidence vote. In that case, however, they need to go directly to the parliamentary speaker (Usama al-Nujayfi). Talabani has no role whatsoever in that route to a no confidence vote.

In both cases the vote itself will be settled by an absolute-majority vote of 163 deputies.

In other words, the signatures to Talabani are no more binding than an opinion poll. Talabani may listen to them if he likes to, or he may reject them and ask them to work via a 65-member petition instead.

This is why it is so strange that Maliki has initiated a procedure of investigation of these basically valueless signatures. One possible explanation is that he may want to pre-empt any possible move by his enemies through embarrassing them with charges of fraud. The different reports of the true number of signatories are in themselves perhaps an indication that there may be problems relating to the verification of some of the signatories. Even if this move by Maliki may seem quixotic, it is certainly preferable to the overtly politicised recent ruling by the supreme court on the right of parliament to question ministers.

Iraqiyya claims Talabani has already sent a request for a no confidence vote to Nujayfi. The only thing that is known officially is that Talabani has formed a committee to deal with the question of the authenticity of the signatures.

Constitutionally meaningless it all is, but maybe a way of winning time for players unsure about their next move?