Iraqi Communist Party rejects Al-Zaidi's completed cabinet

Shafaq News- Baghdad

The Iraqi Communist Party on Friday rejected Prime Minister Ali Al-Zaidi's newly completed cabinet, describing it as the product of a power-sharing deal among the country's dominant parties and calling for a peaceful popular movement for change.

Parliament on Thursday approved three deputy prime ministers and 11 ministers, filling posts left vacant since the government took office in May. In a statement, the party's political bureau said the lineup came after more than five months of bargaining over posts, including newly created ones, rather than agreement on a program to tackle unemployment, poverty, poor services and corruption.

"No reform under quota-sharing," the party said, referring to muhasasa, the informal system under which Iraq's ruling parties divide state posts along sectarian, ethnic and party lines. It said the parties behind the deal bore political responsibility for entrenching that system, and that their parliamentary majority did not shield them from public accountability.

The party urged trade unions, protest movements and democratic groups to unite in peaceful, constitutional action against what it called the monopoly on power and wealth.

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