So what are Iraqiyya doing at this momentous juncture? Alas, very few new ideas were presented by coalition leader Ayyad Allawi during his speech today. In fact, all three alternative ways forward proposed by Allawi involve constitutional problems that have been debated before.
Firstly, the suggestion by Allawi to have new elections under an interim government is unconstitutional. This goes back to an idea which has consumed a ridiculous amount of energy both among Iraqiyya leaders and the Americans since 2009, to the effect that there could be some kind of neutral “caretaker” administration during the run-up to elections. Unless the prime minister resigns or is voted out of office, there is no such thing as a transitional caretaker government in the Iraqi constitution, period. The legal status of the government remains exactly the same until a new government is formed. Additionally, any call for early elections would of course reopen the stalemated debate about the composition of the Iraqi elections commission and the electoral law, probably ensuring that actual elections would not happen until 2013 at the earliest.
The second suggestion by Allawi to have the dominant partner in the government, the Shiite National Alliance, change its prime minister (i.e. sack Maliki) is also unconstitutional as long as he means changing the PM only. As per the constitution, once the PM is voted out of office, the cabinet as a whole is considered resigned and it is the job of the president to identify the biggest bloc in parliament and charge its PM candidate with forming a new government. Constitutionally speaking, then, there can be no smooth and easy transition from Maliki to whoever may be waiting in the wings – Allawi is probably thinking of Adel Abd al-Mahdi; Iran of Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Thirdly, the alternative of trying to enforce an implementation of the Arbil agreement itself would also be unconstitutional, as Maliki has rightly reminded us lately. Things like the national council for high policies, the idea of “balance” in the ministries of government, and the re-establishment of the presidency council are all unconstitutional. One of the few specific points of the obscure Arbil “agreement” that actually resonate with the constitution is the demand that bylaws for the cabinet be adopted. In the current political climate, early agreement on such a complex piece of legislation seems entirely unrealistic.
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