Parliament's first sitting expected to see announcing majority bloc

[Traconesu02]

Parliament's first sitting expected to see announcing majority bloc

Sunday, June 13th 2010 2:51 PM

Baghdad, June 13 (AKnews) – Iraqi parliament's first sitting on Monday is expected to see the announcement of a majority bloc to be charged with forming the new Iraqi government, while some politicians say it will be a protocol session.

Ala Talabani, a leader on the Kurdish Blocs Alliance, said Sunday that she expected the first meeting of the Council of Representatives (Iraqi Parliament) on Monday would see the announcement of the largest bloc to be assigned with forming a government commissioned by the President of Iraq.

Talabani pointed out that the discussions of the first session will rotate around mechanisms for naming the biggest bloc with a view to accelerate the formation of a new government.

She said the method of naming the majority bloc is to rely on the Federal Court's interpretation of article 76 of the Iraqi constitution, in which case a merger - the National Alliance - which includes the State of Law Coalition led by outgoing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, and Iraqi National Alliance (INA) led by Ammar al-Hakim, will be assigned with forming the next government.

The Iraqi President-elect, according to the constitution, will charge the majority bloc with forming the new government in a period that does not exceed 30 days, and in case that bloc failed to form the government, the bloc following that will be assigned with the task.

However, Qasim Dawud of the National Alliance predicted that the first sitting would be a protocol session with a message to the Iraqi people that legislative authority and control is back to functioning after a break which lasted almost four months.

The Federal Court's interpretation about the majority bloc should settle the dispute over who to form the new government, according to Dawud.

Iraq's Presidential Office had set Monday as the date of the first meeting of the new 325-seat parliament in which the parliament speaker and his two deputies will be chosen.

Meanwhile, some political parties find it likely that the meeting be open to bypass the time limit for the largest bloc to form the next cabinet in a dispute over interpretation of article 76.

The Federal Court interpreted on March 25 the term "majority bloc" as the bloc: either a bloc formed after the elections of one list which had entered the elections with a certain name and code and won the most seats, or a bloc formed of two or more of the electoral lists, which entered the elections with different names and were united as a single entity in the parliament.

Iraqi politics witnessed controversial differences over who is authorized to the form the new government after Iraqiya, led by former PM Ayad Allawi, becoming the top vote-getter with 91 seats, insisted it would form the government while the State of Law, basing its claims on the interpretation of article 76 by the federal court, said it would form the next government through aligning with the INA to cobble together a majority.

The State of Law and INA announced their coalition on May 4 in a step to put together a majority bloc to form the new government.

Prior to the ratification and announcement of the poll results by the federal court on June 1, the State of Law and INA concentrated their talks and meetings which ended, weeks ago, with the new National Alliance, interpreted by the leaders of both Shiite blocs that the new alliance has the right to form the next government considering it the majority bloc with 159 seats.

But it is still four seats short of a majority of 163 seats.

http://www.aknews.co...knews/4/154739/

[bobby_cahill]

I like the picture

Shows that they're at least in the same building!

Now time to sit back and see what kind of a mess they can make of this (sarcastically said)

Lets hope the progress keeps moving

Good luck to everyone this week!

Thanks for the post

Semper Fi