Hakim opposes changes to Iraq's constitution

The leader of the United Iraqi Coalition, Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, said that the Shiite list will not accept fundamental changes to the Iraqi constitution which was approved in mid October.

Hakim said on Wednesday in an al-Adha holiday sermon that the formations of districts in the central and southern Iraq has been almost settled at the constitutional level, and there is no going back, noting that this issue was fully discussed by the Iraqi sides before adding it in the constitution.

Hakim indicated that there are sides working for a change in the constitution, stressing that his political list members will oppose them.

The Sunni sides which had numerous reservations on the new constitution before its adoption, especially its items relating to the confederation, but decided to withhold these reservations after a settlement was reached stating that changes to the constitution would be adopted through the National Assembly (parliament). On this basis, the Sunni sides had called for vast participation in the legislative elections held at the time, with the aim of gaining seats to ensure a majority that would be able to amend the constitution.

However, the almost final results showed a clear progress for the Shiite list and the Kurdistan alliance, the two main sides in the current government. Scores of the political forces, mostly Sunnis rejected these results under the pretext of vast fraud operations in the elections.

Hakim called on those opposing the preliminary elections results to stop their objections, stressing that his list will nominate a prime minister within days.

Sources in the coalition expected that the competition will be limited over this post between the prime minister whose term of office expired, Ibrahim al-Jaafari and his deputy Adel Abdul Mahdi, but the other candidate for the post, who is the leader of al-Fadila party, Nadim al-Jabiri, indicated his chance to win is limited.