Maliki wanted to change the con­sti­tu­tion few days ago [although he was a mem­ber of the par­lia­ment com­mit­tee that super­vised the writ­ing of the con­sti­tu­tion]  because:

Basi­cally, respon­si­bil­ity should be given to the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, which under­takes build­ing and pro­tect­ing the country,

Maliki felt there is no need to hide the deep dif­fer­ences between Bagh­dad and Irbil, espe­cially after a state­ments made by the Pres­i­dent of the Kur­dis­tan region “Barzani” in Wash­ing­ton, expressed his readi­ness to host U.S. mil­i­tary bases in Kur­dis­tan region if Bagh­dad refused to sign the secu­rity agree­ment with Washington.

Ques­tion­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion means:

- The rela­tion­ship between the Kurds and other Iraqi polit­i­cal com­po­nents is very close to another phase of inter­nal conflict.

See­ing Maliki’s attempts to improve his rela­tions with Sadrists, raises some doubts that Maliki wants to split the United Shi­ites Alliance into: Al-Hakim’s Supreme Coun­cil with its Kur­dish Coali­tion alliance — and Maliki’s Dawa Party with the Sadrists alliance [other small par­ties, and the tribal coun­cils] .

- Maliki is deter­ment to strengthen the power of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment at the expense of local (sub) admin­is­tra­tions, while there is no real admin­is­tra­tion except the Kur­dis­tan Regional Gov­ern­ment, Maliki has repeat­edly com­plained about the pow­ers of the cen­tral gov­ern­ment before, but this is the first time he directly referred to the con­sti­tu­tion, call­ing­for new con­sti­tu­tional adjust­ments to fit his ambi­tions of the polit­i­cal, mil­i­tary, secu­rity and finan­cial powers.

Both par­ties will use the con­sti­tu­tion as the “only avail­able” weapon to enforce their demands and esca­lates the tension.

While the Kur­dish Coali­tion will try to use their regional rights in the con­sti­tu­tion to resisted Maliki’s attempt to change it, Maliki will use the con­sti­tu­tion itself as a frame­work allows for amend­ments that he wishs to obtain.

The future of the Iraqi scene will take one of these three tracks:

- The Kur­dish Coali­tion will try a mech­a­nism to over­throw Maliki through a no-confidence vote in the par­lia­ment. This option is nearly impos­si­ble because of the dif­fi­culty of obtain­ing enough votes to achieve an absolute major­ity in the parliament.

- Maliki will try to change the con­sti­tu­tion. The Supreme Islamic Coun­cil has thirty seats and Kur­dish coali­tion Fifty-three seats add to this the Islamic Union of Kur­dis­tan five seats. In total are eighty-eight MP’s. The­o­ret­i­cally, no chance to stand against the amend­ments because the other 2/3 are about 183 seats. If we assume that every mem­ber of the par­lia­ment will have a clear posi­tion from the amendments.

- Con­tin­u­ing the tense sit­u­a­tion and the dead­lock until the next par­lia­men­tary elec­tion and the emer­gence of new polit­i­cal map.

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. a stronger cen­tral gov­ern­ment based in Bagh­dad.  As the Prime Min­is­ter began exert­ing more of his power with the improved secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in 2008, these dif­fer­ences began com­ing to the fore. By the fall both par­ties were crit­i­ciz­ing and­mak­ing moves against Maliki, and he was reply­ing in turn. Since the Jan­u­ary 2009 provin­cial elec­tions, the Prime Min­is­ter has been attempt­ing to forge a new alliance to run in the par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and back him after­wards. Although the coali­tion has not been finalized

  2. wanted a stronger cen­tral gov­ern­ment based in Bagh­dad. As the Prime Min­is­ter began exert­ing more of his power with the improved secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in 2008, these dif­fer­ences began com­ing to the fore. By the fall both par­ties were crit­i­ciz­ing and­mak­ing moves against Maliki, and he was reply­ing in turn. Since the Jan­u­ary 2009 provin­cial elec­tions, the Prime Min­is­ter has been attempt­ing to forge a new alliance to run in the par­lia­men­tary elec­tions and back him after­wards. Although the coali­tion has not been finalized

  3. […] click here if the arti­cle does not […]

  4. […] a more in depth look at how vary­ing ME par­ties may be view­ing this , i rec­om­mend The upcom­ing con­fronta­tion, Maliki and the Kur­dish Coali­tion @ Roads To Iraq and while you are vis­it­ing RTI, you may want to reveiw some of their other coverage […]

  5. […] AQI oper­a­tives nabbed in Diala15.11.2008AMSI: The occu­pa­tion can­not stay15.11.2008The upcom­ing con­fronta­tion, Maliki and the Kur­dish Coalition15.11.2008Kurds alarmed by SOFA14.11.20084 al-Qaeda gun­men detained in Diala13.11.200821 wanted men […]

The upcoming confrontation, Maliki and the Kurdish Coalition

This article was written November 14th, 2008, with the mathematical number of 4 contributions.