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Shiite Islamist Adel Abdel Mahdi and outgoing Sunni
president Ghazi al-Yawar were named as his two
deputies after weeks of political wrangling
following the landmark January 30 elections.
Iraqi MPs predicted that a government should now be
in place by next week, with Shiite politician
Ibrahim al-Jafaari expected to be named prime
minister by the newly appointed three-man presidency
council.
Saddam and 11 of his top aides were to watch the
parliamentary proceedings from their jail cells on a
fortified American base in Baghdad, Human Rights
Minister Bakhtiar Amin told AFP.
"There will be a place in jail for Saddam and the 11
to watch the TV to understand their time is
finished, there is a new Iraq and that they are no
longer ruling the country; so they can understand
that in the new Iraq, people are elected and they
are not coming to power by a coup d'etat."
MPs, dressed in tribal robes, business suits and
Muslim cleric's black robes, walked to the front of
their assembly inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone
to cast their votes before the ballots were counted
publicly.
The vote was a formality after the powerful
parliament Shiite and Kurdish blocs formalised the
line-up with Sunni parties Tuesday after weeks of
wrangling.
Shiite and Kurdish lists finally picked Yawar for
vice president late Tuesday, filling a post reserved
for Iraq's fractured Sunni community.
"We are happy that the first elected president of
Iraq is coming from a community that has been
persecuted for years," Shiite MP Hussein Shahrastani
said.
The presidency council submits the names of prime
minister and his cabinet to the parliament for
confirmation by a majority vote. It also has veto
powers over legislative bills.
Kurdish MP and outgoing foreign minister Hoshyar
Zebari said his Kurdistan Alliance and the Shiite
United Iraqi Alliance which dominated the elections,
had gone out of their way to reach out to the
embittered Sunnis who largely boycotted the election
and are seen as fueling the country's deadly
insurgency.
"Our common approach has been to include them.
Irrespective of their passive attitude, they have
been given significant positions," Zebari said.
Sunni Hajem al-Hassani was elected parliament
speaker on Sunday and the community that controlled
the levers of power in Saddam's regime and all
previous Iraqi governments is also to get four to
six cabinet posts.
Hassani was drafted as a last-minute choice amid
fierce disagreement among Shiites and Sunnis over
who should serve as parliament speaker.
A rocky second parliament session on March 29 ended
in disarray over the failure to choose a speaker as
old communal passions bubbled to the surface.
Shiites accused some Sunni MPs of Baathist ties,
while the Sunni minority bristled at being lectured
to by the Shiites and Kurds.
Complicating matters is the fact the Sunnis have
been mired by in-fighting and unable to form a
cohesive voice in the post-Saddam era.
The second parliament session also served as a
reminder that the failure by the Shiites and Kurds
to form a government risked costing the new
democratic Iraq its legitimacy after millions risked
their lives to vote.
For two months, the Shiites and Kurds had haggled
over cabinet posts and argued over future policy
decisions like federalism and the status of the
ethnically-divided northern oil city of Kirkuk.
Much of the blame for the logjam was placed on the
Kurds, who with 77 seats in the new parliament were
in the position of kingmakers and sought maximum
concessions from their Shiite partners.
The presidency council requires a two-thirds
majority vote from the parliament and the UIA, with
146 seats, needed the Kurdish bloc to elect the
presidency council.
With the presidency out of the way, the rest should
hopefully fall into place.
Zebari said an agreement on the new cabinet to be
headed by Jafaari was also largely complete and that
it would be approved "within a few days."
One outstanding dispute is leadership of the oil
ministry, which the Shiites and Kurds have tussled
over. But even that is expected to be surmounted.
The main task for the new parliament and the next
government will be to oversee the drafting of
permanent constitution and to pave the way for a
second round of elections by December.
However, the new parliament speaker Hassani warned
drafting the constitution could very well be
postponed for six months due to the snail-like pace
of negotiating demonstrated so far.
AFP
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