Iraq Parliament Meets, But Deadlock on Speaker
March 29, 2005

By Khaled Yacoub Oweis and Mariam Karouny:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament met for the second time on Tuesday but politicians failed to agree on the key post of assembly speaker in another damaging setback to efforts to form a government two months after historic polls.

Officials delayed the start of the session for last-minute talks to seek agreement, but later admitted defeat and said parliament would reconvene on Saturday to try to name a speaker.

The failure to appoint a permanent speaker was prolonged an embarrassing impasse over forming a new government, which has angered many Iraqis who braved suicide bombs and insurgent threats to vote in the Jan. 30 election.

As lawmakers haggled inside the fortified Green Zone, mortar blasts echoed across central Baghdad but there were no immediate reports of casualties. Guerrilla mortar teams targeted the first parliament meeting two weeks ago.

When the assembly session began, one woman in a full-length black robes angrily demanded to know what had been going on behind closed doors and why no agreement had been reached. Several other lawmakers also denounced the stalemate.

Officials then told journalists to leave the room, saying the rest of the sitting would be held in secret. Live television coverage ended and was replaced by a program of music.

Because of the failure to name a speaker, parliament would confine Tuesday's session to discussions of the new assembly's regulations, officials said.

The Shi'ite Islamist alliance that came top in the election and the Kurdish coalition that came second have agreed that the speaker should be a Sunni Arab, part of their efforts to reach out to the minority that dominated Iraq under Saddam Hussein but which has been left with little political representation.

Ghazi al-Yawar, a Sunni Arab who is currently Iraq's president, has turned down the post, officials say, and has not been persuaded to change his mind.

SUNNI CHOICES

Most of the 17 Sunni Arabs in the 275-member parliament favor Adnan al-Janabi as their candidate, but he is an ally of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi who has so far declined to join the government, saying his bloc will stay in opposition.

The Shi'ite alliance is backing Fawaz al-Jarba -- a Sunni who joined the mainly Shi'ite bloc. But other Sunnis are against this as he is seen as too close to the Shi'ite alliance, Sunni parliamentarian Meshaan Jibouri said.
"This is the fault of the Shi'ites and the Kurds who failed to bring Allawi into the government," Jibouri told Reuters.

He said that if Jarba was pushed through as speaker -- which the Shi'ites could do with their parliamentary majority -- other Sunni Arabs would walk out of the session, leaving attempts to draw them into politics in tatters.

FURTHER POSTS

Once a speaker is agreed, the National Assembly's next task will be to elect a president and two vice presidents. A two-thirds majority is needed for that, which will mean the Shi'ites and Kurds must reach a deal to muster enough votes.

The presidential triumvirate will then have two weeks to choose a prime minister, who will then appoint a cabinet.

Hussein al-Shahristani, a Shi'ite nuclear scientist who spent 12 years in Saddam's jails, was expected to be named as one of the deputy speakers.

The Shi'ites and Kurds have broad agreement that Shi'ite Ibrahim Jaafari will be the next prime minister with veteran Kurdish politician Jalal Talabani taking the president's post.

The two vice presidents are expected to be interim Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a Shi'ite, and the Sunni Arab Yawar.

But officials have not agreed on the distribution of cabinet posts. The Kurds are expected to retain the foreign ministry, with the defense ministry going to a Sunni Arab. But the key oil ministry is a source of disagreement -- the Kurds covet it, but the Shi'ite alliance insists it should get the ministry.

Cracks are also appearing within the Shi'ite alliance, with some members voicing doubts about Jaafari.

As politicians focused on horse-trading, insurgents pressed on with their campaign of violence.

Three Romanian journalists were kidnapped in Iraq on Monday, Romania's president said.
Romanian media said Marie Jeanne Ion and Sorin Miscoci of Prima TV and Ovidiu Ohanesian of Romania Libera newspaper were snatched in Baghdad. They were the latest foreigners to be seized in a wave of kidnapping that has swept Iraq.

Ion's mother told Romanian television her daughter sent a text message from her mobile telephone saying: "We're kidnapped. This is not a joke."

In Kirkuk, a car bomb exploded near an Iraqi army patrol and the convoy of a local official, killing one person and wounding 15. In Basra, the head of the South Oil company survived an assassination attempt when a roadside bomb exploded beside his car. Police said nobody was wounded.

Source Link: http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8022134&pageNumber=0