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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Iraqi leaders confident of constitution by mid-August |
| 2005-03-31 |
| Iraqi politicians are confident they can draft a new constitution before a mid-August deadline despite the fact they have not formed a government more than two months after the election. Despite those obstacles, lawmakers insist they have time to draw up a constitution before Aug. 15, the deadline laid down in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL). "We are not going to be late," Adnan al-Janabi, a minister of state who is close to interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, told Reuters Iraq's ethnic and religious groups were huddled in meetings as they attempted to resuscitate a political process that has become deadlocked two months after the country's first free elections in 50 years. "There is concern about whether we have enough time to complete the constitution. We'll have to work harder on this," said Saad Jawad, a Shia member of the 275-seat parliament. With parliament mired by infighting and turf wars over cabinet posts, questions abounded whether the country's volatile communal mix could strike a balance on a permanent legal charter by mid-August, the deadline set in the interim constitution. Despite MPs being eager to present a positive face to the public, Tuesday's parliament session ended instead in catcalls and bitter divisions over the failure to choose a parliament speaker. As prominent figures including Allawi bolted from the proceedings and the media was ejected, parliament adjourned the session — only the second since the January 30 election — until Sunday. . The circus-like debacle brought to the surface the power struggle among the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis that has dragged on in closed-door negotiations since the watershed election that saw millions vote despite security fears. The failure of politicians to put aside their differences in the face of a deadly insurgency and a war-shattered economy has stirred anger on the streets and elicited warnings that parliament risks losing its legitimacy. For weeks, the election-winning Shia United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), with 146 of the 275 parliament seats, and the second-place Kurdistan Alliance have haggled over posts. Iraq's long-oppressed Kurdish minority, benefiting from the need for a two-thirds majority to approve a presidency council and prime minister, has shut down the proceeding as it seeks the maximum concessions from the UIA. The Kurds, fearful Iraq's Arab majority will one day try to steal away their autonomy in the north, have battled fiercely over issues like federalism, their peshmerga militia and the future of the ethnically-divided city of Kirkuk. The battle for power between Shia and Kurds has left the vastly under-represented Sunnis, with only 16 seats, feeling shunted to the side. Insurgents opened fire on a US military patrol in Mosul on Wednesday and six people were killed in a subsequent exchange of gunfire, including a woman and child, Iraqi police said. The attack occurred in the northeast of the city, where there has been a surge of violence over the past four months. Five people were wounded in the fighting. US forces had no immediate information on the incident. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |