peacefare.net

Still getting ready to sing

Anti-Kurd hardliner Osama al Nujaifi has been elected Speaker of the parliament in Baghdad, but then he and the rest of Iraqqiya walked out, apparently in protest against the treatment of some of its former Baathist members.  Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani has been voted back into the Presidency, which however has lost the veto and is now almost entirely ceremonial.  Its one substantial function is to designate a prime minister; Talabani almost immediately named Maliki, who gets a month to put together a government. 

Allawi and Maliki reportedly sat together in parliament as a sign of solidarity, which won’t mean much in light of the subsequent walk-out.

Still no naming of ministers, or other devilish details like precisely what Allawi has been promised on the national security front.

No need yet to take your seats for the finale.  The scruffily bearded guy won’t sing until the ministerial nominations are ready, which could still be weeks away.

Iraqi parliament convenes in 1st steps to new govt – Yahoo! News.

The scruffily bearded guy gets ready to sing

Maliki and Allawi have at long last apparently cut a deal putting Allawi’s  people in as speaker of the parliament and as head of a committee overseeing national security (but is this the old, ineffective one, or a new one?).  This is the deal Reidar Visser proposed several days ago (Iraq leaders reach deWhy Iraqiyya Should Accept the Speakership « Iraq and Gulf Analysis). Kudos to Reidar!

Hard to believe this saga is at an end until we see a list of ministers approved in parliament.  Is Moqtada al Sadr in or not?  In where?  What is the overall Iraqiyya role?  What is Allawi’s specific role?  Lots of devilish details before it is possible to judge what this all means.

Kurdish unity frays

The reform-minded Gorran (Change) movement has defected with its eight seats from the broader 58-seat Kurdish coalition in the Iraqi parliament.  This will weaken the Kurdish position only marginally for the moment, but it introduces one more moving part in an already complicated government formation process.

Not clear yet whether Gorran is moving towards Allawi or towards Maliki–the defection was caused by controversy over Kurdistan’s electoral law, not over who should be prime minister in Baghdad.  But I’ll bet the Americans are pushing hard for Change to move towards Allawi.

Rudaw in English….The Happening: Latest News and Multimedia about Kurdistan, Iraq and the World – A Major Party Breaks Away From Kurdish Alliance.

Kurds leaning towards Maliki

The Baghdad rumor mill today is putting the Kurds in Maliki’s camp, which would put him over the top arithmetically.  He would still need to harvest a few Iraqiyya votes for appearances’ sake, but that shouldn’t be impossible, and it might not take long.

This is not good news for Washington, which preferred a government built on a Maliki/Allawi foundation.  The one that seems to be emerging is built on a Maliki/Sadrist foundation, which is likely to be friendlier to Tehran and less able to keep disgruntled Sunnis inside the political process.

But it’s not over until the scruffily bearded guy sings.  Is this just one more turn in the eight-month process, or is this the finale?