Early in September al-Maliki appointed one of his closest allies, Ali al-Allaq, to head Iraq's Central Bank. This came at the same time as the Central Bank's former head, Sinan al-Shabibi, was sentenced to seven years in jail on charges of corruption.
It is generally thought that because al-Shabibi, an economist, had resisted al-Maliki's attempts to interfere in Central Bank business and not allowed him to withdraw money from the bank's reserves, that al-Maliki cooked up the corruption charges in order to have him removed from the post.
There have already been calls to reverse the decisions made against al-Shabibi.
Other appointments made by al-Maliki include appointing his spokesperson, Ali al-Mousawi, as director general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, making the head of his financial office, Dea'a al-Quraishi, the Deputy Minister of Planning and appointing an MP from his own party, Ali al-Shlah, as chairman of the board of trustees at the national broadcaster, the Iraqi Media Network, which also runs the Iraqiya TV channel.
Current MPs say that behind the scenes, al-Maliki also appointed dozens more of his closest allies and followers into senior jobs in sensitive positions. Other job holders were forced to retire, army officers loyal to al-Maliki were unjustifiably promoted and other army officers were paid above and beyond their salaries by his office.
“Parliament is going to discuss all of he decisions taken by the previous government,” Shiite Muslim MP Hassan al-Sari told NIQASH. “Especially as many of these decisions should not have been made without Parliament's approval in the first place.”
Iraq's Constitution actually says that appointments such as the head of the Central Bank need to be approved by Parliament, as do many senior military and security appointments – however al-Maliki basically ignored this.
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