Iraq's highest court to look into a motion challenging al-Sudani's premiership in early 2023
Shafaq News/ Iraq's Supreme Federal Court will be looking into a motion to annul the nomination of Mohammad Shia al-Sudani for the premiership early in 2023, a leaked document showed on Wednesday.
On October 27, Iraqi lawmakers approved a new government ending more than a year of deadlock. Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani,52, who previously served as Iraq's human rights minister as well as minister of labour and social affairs, heads the new government.
Sudani vowed to reform the economy, fight corruption, improve deteriorating public services, combat poverty and unemployment among other things.
He also promised to amend the election law within three months and hold early parliamentary elections within a year.
"The endemic of corruption that has affected all aspects of life is more deadly than the corona pandemic and has been the cause of many economic problems, weakening the state's authority, increasing poverty, unemployment, and poor public services," Sudani said in his speech in parliament ahead of the vote.
Al-Sudani is the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc known as the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-aligned factions. He took over from former Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi, who led a caretaker government, after anti-government protesters took to the streets in their thousands in 2019, demanding jobs and the departure of Iraq's ruling elite.
Al-Sudani's nomination has been vehemently rejected by powerful Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose bloc was the biggest winner in last year's election but later withdrew from the parliament due to its inability to form a government.
Al-Sudani's nomination by the Coordination Framework on July 25 had sparked some of the largest protests in the capital Baghdad since last year’s election, with al-Sadr supporters breaching the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad and storming the country's parliament to demand the withdrawal of al-Sudani's nomination
