The new Iraqi Council of Representatives on Sunday opened with a heated inaugural session, three tense months after legislative elections won by Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, the likely kingmaker of the next government.
Al-Sadr, 47, who once led an anti-US militia and who has a large following, is expected to have the key say in who is to serve as the next prime minister, a post held by Mustafa al-Kadhemi.
Sunday saw the swearing in of the 329 members of the unicameral parliament and the re-election of Iraqi Representative Mohammed al-Halbousi, who is Sunni, as speaker.
Photo: Reuters
However, a dispute broke out between lawmakers of the Shiite Coordination Framework coalition and their rivals under al-Sadr, several parliamentary sources said.
Iraq’s post-election period has been marred by high tensions, violence and allegations of voter fraud.
Iraqi Representative Mahmud al-Mashhadani, the oldest member of parliament who chaired Sunday’s session, was “hospitalized,” public television said.
Iraqi News Agency reported that he was in a “stable” condition, while a parliamentary source requesting anonymity said that al-Mashhadani “fainted.”
Videos filmed by lawmakers showed them fighting among themselves and the session was suspended for more than an hour before resuming.
Al-Sadr, who wears the black turban of a descendant of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed, emerged as the big winner of the polls on Oct. 10 last year.
The elections had been held several months early as a concession to a democracy movement.
Al-Sadr’s movement, which ran after he reversed an initial election boycott call, won 73 of the 329 seats.
Iraqi Representative Muthana Amin, who is Kurdish, said that Sunday’s session “began normally,” but that the Coordination Framework claimed it was the largest alliance in parliament, with 88 seats.
Mashhadani “asked for the information to be verified, after which he was abused,” Amin told reporters, without saying whether his hospitalization was linked to the incident.
Within 30 days of its inaugural session, the parliament must elect the president of the republic.
The new president must then appoint a premier, who is chosen by the largest coalition and has 30 days to form a government.
Some experts expect a new governing team in place by March for the oil-rich, but war-battered country of 40 million people.
Al-Sadr has repeatedly said that he wants to break with the Iraqi political tradition of a “consensus” government to instead build a majority government.
That would mean securing a ruling majority that would appoint a premier and a Cabinet from within its ranks.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
TRUDEAU IN TROUBLE: US president-elect Donald Trump reacted to Chrystia Freeland’s departure, saying: ‘Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland on Monday quit in a surprise move after disagreeing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over US president-elect Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The resignation of Freeland, 56, who also stepped down as finance minister, marked the first open dissent against Trudeau from within his Cabinet, and could threaten his hold on power. Liberal leader Trudeau lags 20 points in polls behind his main rival, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, who has tried three times since September to topple the government and force a snap election. “It’s not been an easy day,” Trudeau said at a fundraiser Monday evening, but
RSS