Al-Khafaji also points out that those groups who are supporting this call for change “obviously haven't read the Constitution. They're not aware of the mechanisms that need to be used, in order to change or amend the Constitution.”
“Actually the Iraqi Constitution has a lot of bugs and problems,” argues Saad al-Matlabi, a senior member of Nouri al-Maliki's party and one of his supporters. “We need to change it, to re-write it. But what is important is that this change does not occur through a coup. If the people vote for al-Maliki – or any other person in the future – that is their right. To change the system we need pressure from political parties, from activists and from the people themselves,” he concludes.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, leading Sunni Muslim politicians also came out against the idea of a change of system. Parliamentary Speaker, Salim al-Jibouri, ruled out any changes to the Iraqi constitution in the near future and he went on to defend the status quo.
“Iraqis are currently living in a special, and certainly democratic, environment,” he said. “This is because of their Parliament and their MPs, who are doing their legislative duty and who are also now able to perform a supervisory role.The government was formed thanks to this Parliament and the President was also chosen by the Parliament.”
“We must not underestimate the value of the system we now have,” al-Jibouri cautioned. “If we found a better system, we could use that. But this decision should not be driven by politics,” he concluded.
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