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Sunni Blocs Boycott Iraq Parliament
24.6.2007
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Sunni
Arab Blocs Boycott Iraqi Parliament Because Speaker
Was Not Reinstated As They Demanded
June
24, 2007
BAGHDAD, -- Parliament's two Sunni Arab blocs
boycotted the 275-seat house on Sunday because the
Sunni speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, was not
reinstated as they demanded.
Muhannad al-Issawi, a spokesman for Adnan al-Dulaimi,
leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, had said that
the 44-seat bloc decided in a meeting Saturday to
demand that al-Mashhadani preside over Sunday's
session.
"If the demand is rejected by other blocs, then the
Accordance Front will suspend its participation in
parliament," al-Issawi had told The Associated
Press.
The Accordance bloc was joined in the boycott by the
11-seat National Dialogue Front.
The Sunni boycott threatens to further disrupt the
work of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's
Shiite-dominated government as it seeks to enact
legislation, under pressure from the United States,
to reconcile the differences among Iraq's Shiite,
Sunni and Kurdish groups.
The Accordance bloc is a participant in the al-Maliki
coalition, which already had been undermined by a
boycott by
the 30-seat Shiite bloc of anti-American cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr. The National Dialogue Front is not
part of the
government.
Parliament voted June 11 to ask al-Mashhadani, a
Sunni Arab, to step down and assigned his deputy,
Shiite Khaled al-Attiya, to his place until a
permanent replacement was found. It also asked the
Accordance Front, to which the speaker belongs, to
name a replacement within a week.
Al-Mashhadani repeatedly has embarrassed the Sunni
Arabs in al-Maliki's Shiite-dominated coalition
government.
Many legislators viewed his behavior as unbecoming
and occasionally erratic.
A senior lawmaker from the Accordance Front, Salim
Abdullah, had said his bloc would return to
parliament only if al -Mashhadani is reinstated and
a law defining the legal and constitutional grounds
for the dismissal of the speaker was adopted.
The Sadrist bloc declared a boycott to protest
against what they say was the government's failure
to protect a key Shiite shrine north of Baghdad. It
was bombed June 13 for the second time in less than
16 months.
With the three blocs boycotting, the parliament
would have to hold sessions with only 190
legislators, assuming that all the remainder attend.
While 190 would fulfill a quorum of 138, the boycott
would cast a shadow over any major legislation.
Some of the Accordance Front lawmakers voted in
favor of ousting al-Mashhadani in the June 11 vote,
but the bloc appears to have adopted a hardline
stand on the issue following a series of meetings.
Lawmakers from the bloc have refused to say how many
of them voted in support of his ouster. The media
was banned from the session in which the vote was
taken.
The Accordance Front is made up of three parties _
the moderate Islamic Party and the hardline Congress
of the People of Iraq and al-Mashhadani's National
Dialogue Council.
Al-Mashhadani has not been inside the chamber since
the vote, but has been to his office and continues
to retain a large security detail. He has defended
himself in a series of television interviews over
the past two weeks, insisting that his ouster was
unconstitutional.
He has said he was named speaker as part of the same
sectarian, power-sharing deal that gave Jalal
Talabani, a Kurd, the presidency and al-Maliki, a
Shiite, the prime minister's job.
AP
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