Lawmakers boycott Iraq cabinet vote as quorum falls short
Shafaq News- Baghdad (Updated at 20:43)
A cross-party group of Iraqi lawmakers said on Thursday they would boycott the parliamentary session to complete Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi's cabinet, rejecting the creation of deputy prime minister posts and new ministries that they said were being shared out among parties at a time when the state should be cutting spending.
"The resources of the Iraqi people do not belong to the political blocs," lawmaker Haider al-Mutairi told a news conference in parliament, attended by members of the Ishraqat Kanoon, Hoqooq and Abshir Ya Iraq blocs, several lawmakers from the Badr bloc and independents. He urged colleagues not to pass the new posts and said the group would boycott the session and refuse to vote on the cabinet.
Saud al-Saadi, head of the Hoqooq bloc, the political wing of the Iran-aligned armed faction Kataib Hezbollah, said the deal had been struck along the lines of muhasasa, the informal system of sharing state posts among parties. Given regional challenges and Iraq's political and financial crisis, he said, the government should instead have slimmed down its structure and spending.
No quorum
Independent lawmaker Abd Hamza al-Khafaji told Shafaq News that the session was likely to be delayed by several hours or postponed to another day if the situation persisted.
Ali al-Azirjawi, a lawmaker from the State of Law Coalition led by former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, rejected talk of a split. “The session would be held within the hour, and there was no disagreement among the political blocs,” he told Shafaq News, adding that under a political agreement, the four deputy prime ministers and the vacant and new ministries would be voted on as a “single package.”
Iraq's parliament has 329 seats, and a session requires an absolute majority of members to be present.
The final list of 16 nominees released by parliament on Thursday includes four deputy prime ministers, candidates for the nine portfolios left vacant since the government won a confidence vote on May 14, and nominees for two new ministries, Digital Economy and Governance and Tourism, as well as a minister of state.
Read more: Parliament releases final list of 16 cabinet nominees
