A politician who became prevalent in Iraq after the first parliamentary elections in 2005 was known to have the Shiites as prime minister, the Kurds as the presidency of the republic and the Sunnis as the speaker of parliament.
Iraqi Parliament Speaker Muhammad al-Halbousi launched this trend through recently published press statements, in which he considered that “it is in Iraq’s interest that the president of the republic be a Sunni in order for Iraq to enjoy great Arab support and restore its Arab incubator that it has missed for many years.” Read also It is headed by Al-Halbousi, Al-Khanjar and Al-Nujaifi.. These are the most prominent Sunni alliances in the Iraqi elections الانتخاباتAhead of the early elections, differences between Sunni political blocs in Iraq A year after Al-Kazemi became prime minister of Iraq, how do his opponents and supporters describe him?
After
Article 67
After the US invasion of the country in 2003, the Sunnis obtained the presidency only once during the transitional government led by Iyad Allawi, and Sheikh Ghazi Ajil Al-Yawar took over at the time, but after the first parliamentary elections in 2005, an agreement was reached between the Shiite and Kurdish forces to assign the position to the Kurds according to A power-sharing deal.
Article (67) of the Iraqi constitution states that the president of the republic is the head of the state and the symbol of the nation’s unity representing the sovereignty of the country, and he ensures compliance with the constitution and the preservation of Iraq’s independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity, in accordance with the provisions of the constitution.
Article (68) of the Iraqi constitution also stipulated that the President of the Republic be Iraqi by birth, of Iraqi parents, of full legal capacity, of over 40 years of age, of good reputation and political experience, known for his integrity, uprightness, justice, and devotion to the homeland, and not convicted of a crime against honor.
agreements and challenges
Commenting on the Sunni movements, Rezan Sheikh Dler, deputy for the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who has held the presidency for four consecutive terms, believes that there is a strong presence of neighboring countries and America in choosing personalities, especially with regard to the three presidencies, and assures Al Jazeera Net that any change in Iraq must be through Political agreements between the blocs after the elections, but they reduce the importance of rumors about making such changes and consider them mere talk.
As for the Kurds, they do not want the position of parliament speaker, as there is nothing in it that warrants reservations on projects they see as harming the Kurdish component or the Kurdish cause in the foreseeable future, and because of the presence of the vice president and secretary – as the Kurdish writer and professor at the University of Railwayman Dr. Behring al-Jaf says – who have a role In the maneuvers of passing decisions, in addition to the fact that the position of the President of the Republic carries sovereign, internal executive, and external political dimensions, and this is what undoubtedly makes him the focus of the Kurds’ attention.
And about the most prominent challenges that the Kurds will face to maintain the presidency, Al-Jaf answers that by saying that winning the position requires bitter consensus between the various political blocs representing the components, as well as between the Kurdish blocs themselves.
Al-Jaf believes that the conflict is emerging from now on in the media of the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, about winning the position of the presidency, and this will greatly weaken the Kurdish position in its negotiations to obtain the position in exchange for the unified and serious Sunni work to acquire it, especially If this is accompanied by Arab or international pressure for the Kurds to leave office, or by American or Iranian pressure to impose a specific Kurdish personality from one of the two parties, which leads to the final say in the end for political consensus.
And whether the change of the presidency of the parliament and the republic between the Sunnis and the Kurds depends primarily on the political consensus between them, or the matter is ultimately due to regional and foreign interventions, al-Jaf confirms that both cases are permissible, but at the same time he favors the final decision of political consensus.
Al-Jaf reinforces the front of political consensus on such issues by referring to previous cases when the United States decided that Adnan Pachachi should be the rotating president of what was known as the Iraqi Governing Council after the overthrow of the regime of the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in 2003, and he was a Sunni Arab, and preferred in another session to choose Iyad Allawi is the head of that council, and he is a Shiite Arab, and in recent years, when Iran pressured Fouad Hussein to be president, he is a Shiite Kurd, all of them failed in the face of political consensus and in the face of the general “Iraqi” orientations of most members of Parliament and their parliamentary blocs.
And at the same time, dry reduces the lack of influential developments that outweigh the regional or international pressure to impose the distribution of the three sovereign positions in contrast to what they are now, but the ambition of the Sunni and Kurdish components to have a decisive role in executive decisions, especially at the level of foreign policy, and representation in a position More symbolic, ie the presidency, will have the final say over the political consensus.
The return of Iraq to the Arab world
Although Al-Halbousi hinted at a move by the Sunni leaders to regain the position of President of the Republic, and his assertion that it is in the interest of Iraq for the President of the Republic to be a Sunni in order to enjoy great Arab support and restore his Arab incubator that he has missed for many years, the representative of the National Coalition Yahya Al-Ithawi does not expect this Any change in the distribution map of the three presidencies in the upcoming elections.
In the event that there is any change in the circulation of these positions among the three components, this does not mean making any change or adding other powers to the existing ones, whether for the President of the Republic or Parliament. Rather, all powers remain as they are without any change in them.
In his response to Al-Jazeera Net’s question about the importance of the presidency of the republic for the Kurds and parliament for the Sunnis, Al-Ithawi points out that the first has a special symbolism for the Kurds, and no less important is the presidency of the parliament, which has a strong influence through legislation and government control.
Iron fist
On the other hand, the post-2003 political experience confirmed that it has become common knowledge among Iraqis that the three presidencies are just shares shared by the winning blocs as an electoral entitlement that they invest exclusively for their partisan and national interests, according to political analyst Ahmed Al-Saraji.
This experience also confirms that Iraqi democracy was built on the basis of consensus and not as is known to the rest of the peoples when the winning majority is the one who forms the governments, and this is what prompts Al-Sarraj to say that it is impossible and unlikely for the parties to abandon this mechanism that makes them dominant without a competitor if they allow By abandoning consensus despite knowing the failure of this experiment, which brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy, with an unprecedented escalation of protests, violence, and a lack of trust between the people and the political class.
Al-Sarraj asserts that the balance of terror is dominant in determining the path, and the iron fist is for those in power against a crushed majority waiting for salvation, even if it is through external intervention to know everyone – rulers and ruled – of his importance as the owner of change, and he is the one who made elections the only way to change.
Al-Sarji compares the Kurds and the reconstruction, construction and economic recovery they have obtained, to the miserable situation of the Shiites in the center and the south, so the difference will be big in the desire to participate in the elections, as well as the case with the Sunnis who started mobilizing early for it, ruling out any change in the distribution of the three presidencies, but he confirms that The conflict will be within the components, attributing the reason to the fact that everyone understood that post-2003 Iraq has become a divided component that is only collected by the value of its shares in the budgets.
Change the stereotype
And because Iraq is an Arab country and its surroundings are Arab, it will interact greatly in the Presidency of the Republic if it has an Arab dimension, in addition to contributing to changing the image of the behavioral patterns of the Iraqi leadership and confirms that the country is not governed by sectarian, ethnic or nationalism, as the representative of the Al-Fateh Alliance, Dr. Walid Al-Sahlani, says, with Possibility of making changes in the nature of departments, provided that this is not at the expense of benefits.
Although there are inevitable difficulties with the impossibility of making a change in some positions and positions, such as the prime ministership, which is exclusively for the Shiites, Al-Sahlani does not rule out in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net that there are firm convictions of the political parties with the possibility of changing the equation and that the President of the Republic for the Sunnis and Parliament for the Kurds.
Al-Sahlani stresses that the changes are related to certain agreements between the parties in order for the new government formation to be different from previous years, in addition to the need for moving in this direction within the framework of government political responsibility with a national background.