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.

Patterns of Electoral Behaviour in Iraq: The Use of the Personal Vote in the April 2013 Provincial Elections

Whereas the IHEC press conference announcing the results of Iraq’s 20 April local elections was merely a readout of the names of the winning candidates and their political affiliations, a second batch of useful information, giving the numbers achieved by each candidate, has now been published. This material makes it possible to analyse how the Iraqi electorate uses the “personal vote” option, whereby voters alongside their vote for a particular political entity can indicate their candidate of choice on that slate. When the votes are counted, the pre-set ranking of the candidates done by the party leadership is ignored altogether, and only specific personal votes garnered in the election count as the ordering of candidates on a particular list is done all over again.

Before discussing patterns of electoral behavior, some basic information about how the ballots are cast in an Iraqi election can be useful.Technically speaking, Iraqi voters do not actually receive ballot papers that include the names of the candidates, only the entity names and numbers. Accordingly, in order to make use of the personal vote option, they need to know the number of their preferred candidate and then fill in that candidate’s number after they have checked the box for their party vote.  In theory this can happen in two ways: Either by knowing the candidate’s number beforehand (and remembering it at the voting booth), or by checking a register of all candidates available at the polling station. In practice, most personal votes are probably the result of beforehand knowledge. Electoral propaganda for individual candidates almost invariably includes the key two numbers that voters require, i.e. party list number and candidate number.

Typical Iraqi election poster showing political entity (419) and candidate number (2)

Then, to the actual use of the personal vote in the 20 April 2013 provincial elections. The first point that is worth making is that the personal vote option is indeed being used by the electorate – a lot. The following quick calculations are meant to provide a cross-section of contexts and electorates and show that across parties and governorates, from Iraqiyya to Shiite Islamists and from rural Maysan to the capital Baghdad, a large majority of Iraqi voters indicate their preferred candidate when they vote. Most of the examples indicate above 90% use of the candidate vote, and nowhere is the percentage less than 84%:

	Hakim list	Maliki list	Nujayfi list	Sadr list	Iraqiyya
Basra		91.5%
Muthanna	98.2%	97.3%
Wasit	89.7%	93.6%
Baghdad			84.1%	84.3%
Salahaddin			97.6%		98.9%

*

As for the individual results, the following is a list of Iraq’s 15 most popular provincial politicians, indicating personal votes achieved, list and position on list:

1 Khalaf Abd al-Samad 130,862 Basra 419 1 (Basra governor)

2 Salah Salim Abd al-Razzaq 68,895 Baghdad 419 1 (Baghdad governor)

3 Umar Aziz Hussein Salman al-Humayri 52,219 Diyala 458 58  (Diyala governor)

4 Adnan Abad Khudayr 41,006 Najaf 441 1 (Najaf governor)

5 Ali Dayi Lazim 38,605 Maysan 473 1 (Maysan governor)

6 Riyad Nasir Abd al-Razzaq 21,446 Baghdad 444 1

7 Kamil Nasir Sadun al-Zaidi 18,870 Baghdad 419 2 (Baghdad council speaker)

8 Muin al-Kazimi 17,927 Baghdad 419 5 (leading Badr figure)

9 Adil al-Saadi 16,686 Baghdad 419 6 (top candidate Fadila)

10 Muthanna Ali Mahdi 14,225 Diyala 501 3 (Badr)

11 Majid Mahdi Abd al-Abbas 14,147 Basra 411 1

12 Ammar Yusuf Hamud 13,048 Salahaddin 444 1

13 Saad al-Mutallabi 12,604 Baghdad 419 10 (prominent State of Law politician)

14 Muhammad Mahdi al-Saadi 11,502 Diyala 501 1 (Fadila)

15 Ahmad Abd al-Jabbar 11,470 Salahaddin 475 2

Several points are worthy of note here. Firstly, many of these seat winners, especially those with the highest votes, are governors. Presumably, the number one candidates on the various lists have an advantage in terms of the ability of voters to remember who they want to vote for (note though that the Diyala governor humbly put himself at the bottom of his list, only to be promoted to the top with a safe margin by his grateful electorate). But a closer look at the new councils indicate that the personal vote has done more than just provide a bit of symbolic backing for top candidates whose seats were never under threat anyway. Crucially, a very large proportion of the new Iraqi provincial councilors have been promoted through the personal vote results, rising from positions on their party lists where they would not have received seats according to the preset formula decided by party leaderships.

The best measure for seeing the effect of the popular vote is to carefully study that second set of tables issued by IHEC, which ranks candidates strictly after their personal votes. Note how almost all the major lists have very high percentages of candidates that moved forward to high positions due to personal votes they accumulated, mostly with more than 50% of the candidates rising to the top of the lists of vote getters being promoted from positions further down on the list (the main exception being the Sadrist, with somewhat lower rates). This is not the whole story, though. Because of the women’s quota, the eventual seat winners are not strictly the candidates that won the most  votes. Given the requirement that every fourth seat goes to a woman – and that women with a few notable exceptions garnered relatively few personal votes – the women’s quota in Iraq effectively continues to serve as a check on the electorate’s will (and as such often tallies with the interests of party leaderships, the obvious advantages of having higher female representation notwithstanding). The following table shows the number of top-candidate councilors who remained in seat-winning positions also after the personal vote had been counted (first number); councilors that were promoted from non-winning positions due to the popular vote (second number); and finally women promoted through quota arrangements (third number). It should be added that there are probably no more than a couple of women in the second group of candidates that were promoted because they outnumbered other candidates (including men) in the personal vote, the best example probably being Aisha al-Masari of the Nujayfi list in Baghdad, who got 11,400 votes and thus almost made it to the national top 15.

	Hakim  list	Maliki list	Sadr list
Basra	2-2-2	4-8-4	2-0-1
Maysan	1-3-2	2-4-2	3-3-3
Dhi Qar	1-4-2	3-4-3	2-3-0
Muthanna	2-4-1	3-3-2	2-0-1
Qadisiyya	2-2-1	2-4-2	2-1-1
Babel	1-4-2	3-3-2	2-1-1
Najaf	4-1-1	1-3-1	2-0-1
Karbala	2-0-1	3-2-2	3-0-1
Wasit	2-3-2	2-3-2	2-2-1
Baghdad	2-2-2	9-5-6	2-2-1

*

In sum, the personal vote option, favoured by the Shiite clergy when it was introduced in 2008, remains largely successful in shaking up Iraqi politics. To some extent, the  system was ridiculed when the Sadrists used it to the maximum in the parliamentary elections of 2010 by carefully orchestrating large number of personal votes for several Sadrists candidates who could then advance internally within the Iraqi National Alliance at the expense of other entities who saw their personal votes wasted on top candidates or not used at all. Nonetheless, these latest results show that the personal vote is here to stay in Iraq, and that elite politicians who choose to ignore it may be doing so at their own peril.

The Intra-List Structure of the State of Law Alliance in Iraq’s New Provincial Councils

In previous elections in Iraq, the party shares of electoral lists running as coalitions have been important especially at the parliamentary level. In 2005, the internal structure of the all-Shiite United Iraqi Alliance was important and influenced questions like federalism and the relationship with Iran, whereas in the parliamentary elections of 2010, all three main coalitions – Iraqiyya, State of Law and the Iraqi National Alliance – featured internal dynamics that would become deeply significant after the elections.

At the provincial level, such intra-list dynamics have been less prominent until now, primarily because there was in 2005 and 2009 a tendency of political parties to contest the local elections as independent entities, or with only minimal coalitions involving a few other parties with which there were already existing ties – SCIRI’s “Islamic Basra” list in 2005 being an example of this. But in this year’s elections, coalitions were indeed significant, above all with respect to the State of Law list headed by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The reason is that shortly before the elections, Maliki radically expanded his list beyond what had been its core in the previous parliamentary election, i.e. the two main Daawa branches and the Independents movement of Hussein al-Shahristani, the deputy premier. Beyond adding the Jaafari breakaway faction of the Daawa (which had run with INA in parliamentary elections in 2010) Maliki’s new coalition lists now also include entities that historically have been more distant from the Daawa, especially the Badr group that recently split from ISCI after having served as its military wing in the past, as well as the Fadila party, another Islamist parties which emerged from the Sadrist movement after 2003.

Today the question is how this enlarged coalitions looks after Iraqi voters have had their say by picking their favourites from the coalition lists by way of the personal vote option.

One recurrent problem in these analyses is the scarcity of sources that comprehensively document sub-entity affiliations. As of today, only one governorate with a full list of the sub-entities of all State of Law candidates is known (Basra). However, alternate sources help provide a fuller picture. In particular, it seems important that most of the factions that joined State of Law more recently have some sources related to their candidates within the new coalitions. This includes Badr (whose newspaper featured extensive interviews with candidates, in addition to a Facebook page) as well as the Jaafari branch of the Daawa movement that was with INA in 2009 (the Beladi TV station has given extensive coverage to individual candidates). Additionally, the Shahristani branch has published a YouTube video of all its candidates, whereas for the Fadila party it is possible to identify most of the candidates by doing advanced searches on the party’s website of party-related news items.

The problem that remains is to account for the relationship between the Maliki branch of the Daawa, the Tanzim al-Iraq branch as well as truly independent candidates. For this purpose, only incomplete sources exist, and in many places it is impossible to typologise further. However, to some extent, the analytical purpose has been achieved when the other sub-entities have been largely identified. Historically, the Tanzim al-Iraq branch has been quite loyal to Maliki, running with him in local elections in January 2009 and staying with him even in August 2009 when parts of it broke off to join INA as the Tanzim al-Dakhil branch. For their part, truly independent candidates within the State of Law alliance will often be there as a result of personal ties to Maliki. Accordingly, while the following picture may be incomplete (and relies to a large extent on a general heading of candidates that are Daawa, Daawa (Tanzim al-Iraq), or independents without further specification being possible), it does seem to summarise the main zones of insecurity for Maliki as they relate to his own coalitions in the Iraqi provinces.

In recent days, there have been some rumours that Maliki had supposedly lost out to Badr, Fadila and Jaafari in the internal struggle over coalition seats resulting from the electorate’s use of the personal vote. There is zero empirical evidence to suggest that such a trend does indeed exist. Even if we allow for the possibility that a small number of Badr or Fadila winners may have been missed due to the methodological issues mentioned, the material above confirms the picture of the Daawa branches as the pre-eminent force within the State of Law coalition, probably representing more than half of the newly elected State of Law councilors. Following Maliki, Badr and Fadila are the most consistent vote getters, with some notable results for prominent candidates, and Fadila picking up no less than 4 seats in Dhi Qar, a traditional party bastion.

To the extent that internal problems in  circles close to Maliki come into play, it seems more relevant to focus on several political figures with some ties to Maliki and/or the Daawa movement who quite successfully ran independently in ways that could be seen as a challenge to the State of Law alliance. This includes Ali al-Dabbagh (508), Shirwan al-Waeli (516) and Muhammad al-Nasiri (404) which won seats in Dhi Qar and Muthanna. Unlike the situation with respect to the Sadrists – where the existence of 3 additional lists beyond the mainline Ahrar list was officially recognized – it is not known to have been a deliberate Maliki strategy to cultivate these lists as supplements to the State of Law alliance.

Even more important than the challengers to Maliki within State of Law are probably the Shiite lists that ran separately everywhere except in the Shiite-minority areas in northern Iraq – the Sadrists and ISCI. Since the Sadrists share seats with Maliki as part of lists 472 and 501, they have been added for purposes of comparison in the table above. With more than 50 seats in total, they form a substantial challenge to Maliki at the local level, as does the revitalized ISCI, which is still more of a coalition than the Sadrists, but which has almost 60 seats in the new councils.

The process of forming provincial councils is already well under way. In areas like Basra, it looks like the Sadrists and ISCI are toying with the idea of trying to challenge Maliki. And the loyalties of the candidates are truly in flux as well. In Basra there are reports of a defection from the Maliki bloc, whereas the winning Iraqiyya candidate thanked his voters by joining Maliki even before the results haad been formally announced.

Beyond party preferences, something in this material that anyone who cares for Iraqi democracy can be pleased about is the fact that the Iraqi electorate keeps using the personal vote option actively. Popular candidates continue to get promoted from places far down on the list, sometimes making the climb to the top from initial positions lower than 50. Party leaderships may experience this kind of voter behavior as an affront, but it is an aspect of the Iraqi political system that clearly brings greater dynamism and unpredictability to the contest, hopefully reminding Iraqi politicians that they cannot afford to ignore their voters as the next major electoral event – elections for the next parliament in 2014 – get closer.

For the First Time, the Iraqi Parliament Publishes the Full List of Absent Deputies

The presidency of the Iraqi parliament has taken the unprecedented step of publishing what it calls the full list of deputies who were absent from the last parliament meeting.

The move comes after a week of trouble with achieving quorum in the Iraqi national assembly. Previously, despite the fact that parliament is mostly only two-thirds full, only names of those who have formally applied for leave of absence have been published. This time, the presidency of the parliament has decided to extend the parliament term with one month in response to the quorum problems, and has vowed to continue to publish the names of the absent MPs on the parliament website.

It is interesting that the list specifically describes the absence of all the deputies of the Kurdish bloc and its allies – altogether 59 deputies, including 2 Chaldeans and 1 Shabak – as relating to a “political boycott”. For the remainder of absent deputies, there are ostensibly other reasons, although a glance at the statistics reveals some interesting tendencies. Starting with the Shiite alliance, out of its 28 absent deputies, no less than 10 are Sadrists, which could perhaps be seen as something of a political protest. But note that the State of Law bloc of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has also 10 deputies absent! Turning to Iraqiyya, again the Wifaq bloc of Ayyad Allawi stands out, accounting for 8 of the 23 absent MPs. But other blocs including more pro-Maliki ones are also absent, with for example 3 from the Mutlak bloc and 2 from the Karbuli bloc. Also noteworthy is the absence of 6 deputies from pro-Maliki Iraqiyya splinter groups like Free Iraqiyya (4), White (1) and Wataniyun (1).

In sum, this latest move seems like a much-needed escalation from the Iraqi parliament presidency against MPs whose general laziness tends to cut across party lines. Whereas some Maliki opponents may be absent in protest, pro-Maliki MPs are perhaps absent in sheer apathy over a parliament which often seems confined to irrelevance. Note also that the list – despite being the most comprehensive overview of absentees at an Iraqi parliamentary meeting published to date – does not count more than 116 deputies, less than the 163 needed to deny quorum. Are we supposed to believe that Ayyad Allawi, who is not mentioned in the list, actually attended?

While the publication of this list is a welcome and long overdue move by the Iraqi parliament presidency, it seems there is still much left to do before there is full transparency in the Iraqi parliamentary process.

Patterns of Reinstatement in the Final Version of Iraq’s Local Elections Lists

Whereas the previous list of candidates for Iraq’s 20 April local elections had 8,099 names, the updated list published today has 8,138 names, meaning 39 more candidates have been approved following appeals processes, including de-Baathification appeals.

The changes are too small for elaborate statistical analysis similar to the one that was possible for the initial list, but the revised table of excluded candidates does show the same tendencies as regards conflicts between political entities and the elections commission IHEC as before the appeals process. The Sunni-majority governorates have been subjected to most exclusion of candidates, and the Iraqiyya list is also the main casualty. It is noteworthy, though, that both Saleh al-Mutlak and Usama al-Nujayfi have been somewhat more successful with their appeals than Ayyad Allawi’s mainline Iraqiyya list. Some symbolically important appeals successes include the reinstatement of the top candidate of the Mutlak list in Baghdad and number 3 of Nujayfi in Nineveh. Conversely the top candidate of Iraqiyya in Anbar and its number 5 in Nineveh and number 6 in Karbala remain excluded. Maliki had only problem with a single candidate (in Basra); he was reinstated.

Since Mutlak and Nujayfi had relatively few candidates excluded in the first place, it is perhaps not worthwhile to push this finding too far. Politically, of course, Mutlak is at the moment engaging with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki by returning to cabinet (alongside the Hall faction), whreas Nujayfi remains in opposition to Maliki (Iraqiyya has reportedly brought the delay of local elections in Nineveh and Anbar to the attention of the federal supreme court). Nonetheless, Mutlak’s relative success in the reinstatement round along with his return to cabinet yesterday following his role in the recent passage of the annual budget in parliament with Maliki’s first “political majority” triumph of significance (the slim majority of 168 reportedly also included Free Iraqiyya and White among the Iraqiyya breakaway factions) are indicators of the continuing potential for cooperation between him and Maliki. Whereas many voices in Washington are critical of the recent passage of the budget in parliament because it was done in opposition to the Kurds, the fact that Mutlak now returns to cabinet in the middle of a crisis between Maliki and the Sadrists is actually not the worst thing that could happen in Iraqi politics.

Still, with the decision by Maliki to run all-Shiite lists in the northern governorates, the chances for there to be much positive bridge-building towards people like Mutlak in the aftermath of the elections, as to some extent happened in 2009, remain limited. That in turn means that Maliki remains faced with the challenge of brining Sunni and secular partners more decisively into his on coalition if he wishes to persevere with the political majority project he so often likes to mention.

The Question of the Legality of the Delay of the Iraqi Local Elections in Anbar and Nineveh

Beyond the interesting political dynamics behind the recently declared delay in local elections in Anbar and Nineveh, an even more pertinent issue is beginning to receive some attention in Iraq: Is the delay legal?

The relevant law in this case is the local elections law from 2008. And the relevant article 46 makes the following general points:

-          Cabinet decides the elections date based on a proposal from the elections commission.

-          The elections must be held on a single day.

-          If elections are delayed, current provincial councils remain in power until new ones are elected.

Article 49 goes on to stipulate that no measures that contradict this law are permitted.

A prudent reading of this suggests the local elections law specifically envisions delay as a distinct possibility, but that such a delay should apply throughout Iraq. Partial delays seem impermissible, which is easy to understand given the legacy of heavily manipulated multi-stage elections in Iraq and the broader Middle East during the European mandate period.

The law also seems to indicate the initiative should come from the elections commission. In practice, questions related to the security of the elections are known to have been delegated to a special security committee with joint membership of some IHEC board members as well as representatives of the interior ministry. The head of that committee is said to be Aydan Khaled, an interior ministry official who got into some trouble over the Hashemi affair and at one point last year was rumoured to have fled to Turkey and/or given early retirement. He now appears to be back in business (and is presumably once more friendly with Maliki), although it is unclear whether the security committee or the cabinet that was the driving force behind the Anbar and Nineveh postponement.

In any case, the decision by the Iraqi cabinet on a delay limited to particular governorates seems illegal. It would be helpful if critics of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki spent more time complaining these specific transgressions to the federal supreme court – thereby forcing the court to at least speak its mind publicly – and devoted less attention to federalism schemes or to the arithmetic of the no confidence votes they plan all the time, but rarely bring to the phase of implementation.

How Bush’s Promise of “Even-Handedness” Led Britain into War in Iraq

The decision by President George W. Bush to go to war in Iraq in 2003 was probably made a long time before the actual invasion on 20 March. However, a key role in building a degree of international acceptance for the war was played by the UK prime minister, Tony Blair. 10 years later, we often forget how silly Mr. Blair’s arguments in favour of the war were. For example, while it is true that some attention has been paid to the flawed intelligence with which Blair tried to persuade the House of Commons, most people seem to forget that the argument that seemed to tip the balance for Blair in favour of intervention in mid-March 2003 was the promise by Bush to be “even-handed” regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict in the future!

My angry newspaper letter to The Independent, comparing the stance of the UK on Iraq and Israel and warning about naïveté exactly 10 years ago:

Blair’s “even-handedness” is a farce

Sir, to present George Bush’s new “initiative” for the Middle East as a real step forward (leading article, 15 March) is merely to add to the hypocrisy which fuels anti-Western sentiment around the world. Of two Middle Eastern countries in non-compliance with UN resolutions, country A is starved almost to death and deprived of essential imports for the maintenance of its infrastructure, then threatened with some 200,000 soldiers, and at the precise moment when progress towards compliance is greater than ever before, looks set to become the victim of a devastating military campaign. Country B is treated essentially as any other state for more than thirty-five years, then, in an attempt by world leaders at establishing perfect even-handedness in their approach to all countries in the region, is issued with a warning of a most threatening nature, namely, a statement of intent to publish, at an early date, a three-year road map which might possibly, in the future, bring about a result vaguely resembling compliance with the original resolution. Would not a policy somewhere in between towards both these countries yield better results for the Middle East as a whole?

Needless to say, the letter wasn’t even published by the newspaper.

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.

Emergency Session of Iraqi Parliament Indicates Size of Opposition to Maliki

Yesterday’s attempted emergency session of the Iraqi parliament was an important expression of how recent weeks of protests in Iraq translate into parliamentary arithmetic.

Numbers and rumours regarding the participation of various blocs have been flying around ever since the beginning of Sunday’s session. Regarding the parties that refrained from attending, the reports have been quite consistent: The State of Law bloc of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki along with Shiite Islamists allies Badr, Fadila and, somewhat more surprisingly perhaps since they are not in alliance for the local elections except in the north, the ISCI-Muwatin bloc of Ammar al-Hakim. Also the White bloc, a mostly Shiite breakaway faction from the secular-Sunni dominated Iraqiyya boycotted the session. That means there were MPs present from Iraqiyya (whose constituencies have played the dominant role in the recent protests), the Kurds, and the Sadrists.

The theoretical parliamentary strength of those who boycotted is around 130, whereas the attendants, again in theory, should at least be able to muster 170 deputies, above the 163 mark that signifies the quorum level in the Iraqi parliament. Things got quite ironic during the course of Sunday as press reports made headlines to the effect that the quest to reach quorum was so intense (and the general attendance level of the Iraqiyya deputies so poor) that even Iraqiyya leader Ayyad Allawi came to parliament (he usually doesn’t, although it is of course his a duty as an MP to attend). In the end, it wasn’t enough. According to the official parliamentary report, 161 deputies attended, just 2 MPs short of quorum. This is higher than some of the unofficial figures that circulated earlier on Sunday but of course not enough to hold a valid parliamentary session.

As the Iraqi political scene heats up, it is equally important to be aware of the parameters within which the Iraqi parliament can affect change. Two supreme court rulings have hamstrung the parliament in significant ways over the last few years. The first, from July 2010,  considers the modalities of introducing a bill, in practice restricting the right of parliament to initiate legislation since every law needs to pass through the government before it can get voted on. The second, from May 2012, considers limitations on the right of parliament to question ministers.

It should be added here that even the act of cancelling a bill in practice requires a “legislative project” that needs to pass two readings. This is relevant since there was some talk about projected attempts to strike down anti-terror legislation with which many of the Anbar protestors are unhappy.

What this means in practice is that the most that can be expected by parliament in terms of radical anti-Maliki action in a hastily convened session like that of yesterday is passage of a bill that has already been through two readings, such as the vote on the supreme court bill, or perhaps the general amnesty law. Passage of such items in the absence of Maliki should not be excluded altogether despite yesterday’s failure. For example, on the amnesty law, Sadrists and Iraqiyya have seen eye to eye in the past. The successful vote for an electoral commission that was not to Maliki’s liking shows that there is no hard veto preventing the Shiite parties for going against Maliki as long as the subject matter is not the survival of the Shiite-led government as such.

Maliki allies have rightly pointed out that the idea of a “consultative” session is an innovation. Constitutionally, what happened Sunday was nothing more than a tea party. But the session was very close to achieving quorum, and Maliki should not exclude the possibility that similar attempts to score political points will be launched prior to the 20 April local elections. With a coalition-strategy that looks more sectarian than in 2009, he is also less immune to this kind of parliamentary action than he was earlier.

Pan-Shiite Alliances in Diyala and Salahaddin: Sectarianism on the Rise in Iraq before the April 2013 Elections?

After having approved the political parties allowed to run in the April 2013 local elections, the Iraqi elections commission IHEC keeps updating its list of coalitions as the various parties join to form greater alliances.

The current list is very preliminary, especially since the leading Shiite Islamist parties have not shown their hands as regards what they will do south of Baghdad (where they use to fight against each other given the Shiite majority population). However, their alliances for two governorates with Shiite minority populations – Diyala and Salahaddin – have now been declared. In both provinces, they will run on a joint Shiite sectarian ticket including everything from ISCI and Badr via Daawa to Sadr.

For anyone who is worried about sectarian tendencies in Iraqi politics, this development should give reason for concern. Suffice to say that back in the provincial elections in 2009, when the climate in Iraqi politics was considered at its most non-sectarian in the post-2003 era, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ran separately in both places. Not only that, he played a role in challenging the other Shiites (chiefly ISCI) when the battle for the governor position in those provinces got going during the months following the election.

To those who are interested in an Iraqi politics defined in non-sectarian terms, the ups and downs of the relationship between the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdsih federal government in Erbil is not as worrisome as many analysts claim. As long as both parties stay within bounds, there is hope for a settlement, and the dispute itself often forces Iraqis in the central-government areas to rethink the relationship between their sectarian and national identities. On the other hand, what is happening in Diyala and Salahaddin regarding these new coalitions seems like miniature replays of 2005, when Iran played a key role in bringing together a unified Shiite coalition at the national level. Still, the most interesting part will be to see what coalitions the Shiite parties will form south of Baghdad over the coming weeks.