“Everyone is unhappy with al-Abadi but everyone has their own reasons for this,” says senior Sunni Muslim MP, Dhafer al-Ani. “In our case, al-Abadi didn't facilitate the formation of the National Guard – this would have allowed the Sunni tribes to participate in the fight against the Islamic State and put an end to the chaos that is being caused by the Shiite Muslim militias. Additionally the government has not properly implemented the general amnesty law that it promised it would when it was formed,” al-Ani told NIQASH.
The general amnesty law was part of a series of promised political reforms that should have seen political prisoners and those arrested on sectarian grounds during al-Maliki's rule released. It would have impacted many Sunnis in Iraq.
“Behind the scenes some very senior politicians are discussing whether al-Abadi has a future,” al-Ani noted. “I have no doubt they're trying to find somebody who can replace him but until now there's been no decision made.”
Also getting in on this act is former Prime Minister al-Maliki. He has even held a meeting with one of his avowed opponents, the Speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, Salim al-Jibouri. Previously al-Maliki had accused the senior Sunni Muslim politician of terrorist activities and tried to stop him taking part in elections.
In the past, Baghdad might have seen the Iraqi Kurdish politicians take part in this process too – they have often acted as kingmakers in the Iraqi Parliament, where they've held a crucial balance of power between the almost equal Sunni and Shiite parties.
But at the moment it seems that the Iraqi Kurdish are too busy sorting out their own problems around who their president is and where their money is coming from, to bother with what's happening in Baghdad.
The Iraqi Kurdish seem very distant from the rest of Iraq at the moment and their only concern right now appears to be the financial deal between Baghdad and themselves. The semi-autonomous northern region is facing a financial crisis that has seen local civil servants unpaid for months on end. Protests there are ongoing as is the political tension between Iraqi Kurdish political parties about the region's presidency.
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