Iraqis blame each other responsible for failure of choosing speaker of parliament
Iraq, Politics, 3/31/2005

The Iraqi political sides seemed to be angry at each other following the failure of two meetings for the Iraqi National Assembly (parliament) in their effort to choose a Sunni speaker and his two deputies.

The parliament concluded its session on Tuesday less than two hours after its beginning during which rows took place because of not reaching an agreement to settle this issue nor the formation of the new government.

Parliamentarians criticized Shiite and Kurdish leaders. Parliament member Mashaan al-Jabburi said "this is the mistake of the Shiite and the Kurds who failed to include Allawi in the government."

A short time later the prime minister whose term of office expired, Eyad Allawi withdrew from the session. The leading Kurdish figure Baeham Saleh told journalists "it can be said we are in a crisis." A member in the Iraqi parliament demanded all details of negotiations which took place in recent days to be disclosed before members of the parliament and before the Iraqi people so as the people will be fully notified about what is taking place and on the those responsible.

Most of the 17 Sunni members in the parliament which is composed of 275 members support Adnan al-Janabi as a candidate for them to succeed Allawi who abstained so far from joining the government, saying that the bloc he leads will remain in the opposition.

The Shiite coalition is supported by Fawaz al-Jarba who joined the Shiite coalition. However, many of the Sunni politicians oppose his nomination because he is member if the Shiite coalition list.

The leading figure in the list of the United Iraqi Coalition, Jawad al- Maliki, told journalists that if the Sunni fail to present a name of a candidate, the Shiite and the Kurdish lists will act to get out of the political bottleneck.

On the sideline of the session, the chairman of the Higher Council Of The Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, held a meeting with Ghazi Ojeil al-Yawer, the Iraqi president whose term of office has expired, in order to discuss this issue. The Kurds prefer that al-Yawer or the minister of industry Hajem al-Hosni to assume the post of the speaker of parliament, while each of the two men prefers another post.

It is expected that the parliament will hold another meeting next Sunday in order to choose a president for it and two deputies after it failed on Tuesday to fulfill that, after more than more than one Sunni Arab candidate refused to assume this post.

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