In sum, if the council is adopted, it is unlikely to be effective in other ways than buttressing the stature of its projected leader, Ayad Allawi of the Iraqiyya coalition. The rest is likely to remain theory, but in this respect it would certainly make Iraq into a crazy-quilt political regime without any clear parallels anywhere in the world. Cohabitation on the French pattern? No, not quite so, since French dualism in the executive consists of a president with a clear popular mandate and a prime minister answerable to the legislative assembly. Also, French presidents and prime ministers have tended to divide the tasks of governing between themselves during periods of cohabitation, whereas the Iraqi proposal looks more like an attempt at creating a second government that will spend most of its energy in Sisyphean attempts at agreeing internally. In fact, if adopted, it would create a tripartite executive in Iraq, alongside the cabinet and the mostly symbolic presidency.
If implemented, the council would clearly be antithetical to the spirit of the limited Iraqi spring (with its call for an end to superfluous top government positions) as well as to the recent downsizing of the government (which to some extent represented a response by the government to those new trends in Iraqi public opinion. Resistance to the bill, which is perfectly logical from the constitutional point of view, has however so far been mostly limited to the State of Law bloc of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Today in parliament, even Ibrahim al-Jaafari reportedly said the bill was broadly compatible with the constitutional framework. Since Jaafari is often seen as closer to Iran and one of the key players in maintaining the sectarian Shiite alliance, it makes you wonder whether Iran, too, is in favour of the formula of more fragmented government in Iraq of the kind that the Kurds have been promoting quite actively over the past years (as seen for example in the way the projected oil and gas council of politicians that is supposed to supplant the regular oil ministry and its technocrats in many important decisions). It seems all the opponents of Maliki are happy to press along with the council despite its glaring weaknesses, with only the Kurdish oppositional Gorran party presenting some good criticism so far, saying Iraqiyya should focus instead on passing legislation for the projected senate (which at least is stipulated in the constitution).
A far more workable objective for Iraq would be to drop the council entirely and instead seek agreement on the security ministries that remain undistributed. Lately there have been some positive ideas about possible candidates from within the Iraqi security forces (instead of politicians) that would be nominated from Iraqiyya and State of Law for defence and interior respectively. However, today much of this was characterised by the official Iraqiyya spokesperson as unsubstantiated, and if the debate over the useless strategic policy council continues to consume the energies of Iraqi politicians over coming weeks and months, agreement on the remaining portfolios in the second Maliki government may prove even more difficult to reach.
Comments are closed.