PM will be chosen through consensus not commissions

[carlablum]

MP: PM will be chosen through consensus not commissions

Tuesday, June 22nd 2010 4:31 PM

Baghdad, June 22 (AKnews) - A candidate for the next Iraqi Prim Minister cannot be chosen through committees formed for the purpose because they cause problems, a member of the Iraqi National Alliance (INA) said on Tuesday, noting that the PM will chosen through consensus.

"A number of members of the National Alliance are sure that a candidate for the PM post can't be chosen through the various commissions, since such committees create only problems," Mohammed Mahdi al-Bayyati said.

"The constitutional and legal negotiations and understandings between the blocs is better than wasting time to form committees, especially that the National Alliance is facing a problem to choose the candidate for the PM post"

The national Alliance has three candidates for the post so far, according to him.

Iraqi Prime Miinster Nuri al-Maliki's State of Law insists on nominating only one candidate; Maliki, while the INA, which is in an alliance with Maliki's bloc to form the National Alliance in an attempt to put together a majority bloc to form the government, has called for the nomination of more than one candidate because some forces within the INA coalition, particularly Sadr movement led by the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, strongly opposes a second term by Maliki.

INA's two candidates for the post are former PM Ibrahim al-Jaafari and an outgoing Vice-President Adel Abdul Mahdi for the post.

The National Alliance will go to the parliamentary meetings with two candidates and this gives a negative impression that the unified bloc can't agree on one candidate let alone other parties, al-Bayyati added.

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 Iraqi government after the Sunni-backed Iraqiya challenger led by former Iraqi interim Prime Minister Allawi garnered the most votes in the March 7 polls beating Maliki by 91 seats to 89.

However, the Shiite coalition between INA and Maliki's lists is still four seats short to the majority bloc of 163 out of the 325-seat parliament of Iraq.

The Federal Court has interpreted article 76 of the Iraqi constitution which stipulates that the "the largest bloc" can form the government as: either the list that gained the largest number of seats in the elections or the bloc that was formed by merging more than one electoral list after the elections to put together a majority.

http://www.aknews.com/en/aknews/4/157512/