(Baghdad) After a year of sometimes bloody trials of strength, Iraq now has a government after parliament gave its confidence to the team of new Prime Minister Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, who faces immense political and economic challenges.
Posted at 3:28 p.m.
This election marks a decisive step in the slow way out of the political impasse in which Iraq, a country plagued by corruption and instability, had strayed a year ago.
Since the early legislative elections of October 2021, the barons of political Shiism have been unable to agree on a new president, nor to appoint a prime minister. Their rivalry has sometimes turned into armed clashes.
Finally, on October 13, the deputies succeeded in electing the Kurdish Abdel Latif Rachid as President of the Republic. The latter immediately instructed Mohamed Chia al-Soudani, a Shiite as tradition dictates, to form a government.
Thursday evening, according to Mr. Soudani’s office, the government made up of 21 ministers “obtained the confidence of the National Assembly”, during a show of hands to which the press was not invited.
Mr. Soudani, 52, succeeds Moustafa al-Kazimi, in office since May 2020. He is supported by the pro-Iran parties of the Coordination Framework which dominate the Assembly.
In accordance with his refusal to take part in the government, the influential and unpredictable Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, sworn enemy of the Coordination Framework, is not represented in this cabinet.
“Critical Moment”
In a multiethnic and multiconfessional Iraq, the ministries are divided between the parties from the different Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities. Majority in Iraq, the Shiites obtain a greater number of government portfolios.
Of the 21 filled ministries, 12 go to Shiites supported by the Coordination Framework, six to Sunni officials (including Defence), two to Kurds (including Foreign Affairs) and one last to a Christian. Three ministries will be held by women.
“Our ministerial team will shoulder its responsibility at this critical time when the world is witnessing huge changes and conflicts,” Mohamed Chia al-Soudani said during his speech ahead of the MPs’ vote.
The UN mission in Iraq “welcomed” the outcome of the election.
But the entry into office of the new government is far from signifying the end of the showdown between the Coordination Framework and Moqtada Sadr.
The Executive and Mr. Sadr have been protagonists since the 2021 legislative elections in a violent struggle for influence.
Their rivalry degenerated into a pitched battle in late August in Baghdad. More than thirty Sadrist supporters were killed in these clashes which pitted them against the army and Hachd al-Chaabi, former paramilitaries integrated into the regular troops and who represent the armed fringe of the Coordination Framework.
As Ihsan al-Shammari of the University of Baghdad explains, Mohamed Chia al-Soudani and the Coordination Framework will have an interest in giving the Sadrists “pledges as to the reforms” they demand to avoid further bloodshed.
In his program, Mr. Soudani undertakes to organize “early elections within a year”, responding, on paper, to one of Moqtada Sadr’s demands.
Protests in sight?
But the Iraqis especially expect their new government to respond to the serious social and economic crisis. In this country rich in hydrocarbons, power cuts are daily, nearly four out of ten young people are unemployed and a third of the population lives in poverty.
The head of government will also have to tackle the 2022 budget, which has still not been adopted, and distribute the 87 billion dollars in foreign currency from oil exports which are dormant at the Central Bank pending the new government.
A challenge in an Iraq where corruption and nepotism are omnipresent.
More generally, insists the analyst Ali al-Baidar, the risk for the government, if it fails, is to see “joint demonstrations” mixing the Sadrists and the protesters “inspired by the October movement”, a term which designates the wave of protest that shook Iraq in October 2019.
At the time, the demonstrations, repressed in blood, vilified “the corruption and the negligence” of the Iraqi leaders, but also the “interference” of Iran.
Sign of the still strong ire of the protesters, one of them, the independent deputy Ali al-Rikabi exploded with rage during the session in Parliament Thursday evening, vociferating against “the same parties in power for two decades”, since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.