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Iraqi president says PM willing to resign, vows early polls

By AFP
November 01, 2019

BAGHDAD: Iraqi President Barham Saleh vowed on Thursday to hold early parliamentary elections once a new law is passed and said the country’s embattled premier would resign if an alternative was found.

Saleh’s televised address was responding to a month of protests in Baghdad and across the country’s south demanding profound reforms and an overhaul of the political system."I will agree on early elections based on a new electoral law and new electoral commission," Saleh said, adding that the draft would be submitted to parliament next week.

He said Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi was ready to step down but there was so far no one to take his place. "The prime minister expressed his willingness to submit his resignation, asking the political parties to reach an agreement on an acceptable alternative," Saleh added.

Such a consensus would "prevent a constitutional vacuum," he said. According to Iraq’s 2005 constitution, the prime minister can be put to a vote of no confidence based on a request by either the president or lawmakers.

It does not address what happens if the premier resigns. Abdel Mahdi, 77, came to power a year ago through a tenuous partnership between populist cleric Moqtada Sadr and paramilitary leader Hadi al-Ameri.

Sadr had called for the PM to resign and for early elections to be held, but Abdel Mahdi dismissed his demands in a letter earlier this week. "If the goal of elections is to change the government, then there is a shorter way: for you to agree with Mr. Ameri to form a new government," Abdel Mahdi wrote.

In Tahrir Square, the main protest camp in Baghdad, Haydar Kazem, 49, said he was unconvinced. "The problem is with the ruling parties, not with Abdel Mahdi," he said.

The entrenched political class is often subject to competing influence from Tehran on one side and Washington on the other.The remarks came days after powerful religious leader Muqtada al-Sadr, who leads the largest bloc in Iraq's Parliament, supported protesters' calls for an early election.

Abdul Mahdi came to power just a year ago after as a compromise candidate between al-Sadr and main political rival Hadi al-Amiri, who heads a coalition of Iran-backed militia leaders. Earlier this week, al-Sadr and al-Amiri agreed to work to remove Abdul-Mahdi from office.

The prime minister had previously offered a range of concessions - including a cabinet reshuffle and a package of reforms. The measures have failed to appease protesters, however, who on Thursday took to the streets across Iraq for a seventh successive day.

The political developments came as thousands of protesters thronged the centre of the capital, Baghdad, in a show of fury at a political elite they see as deeply corrupt, beholden to foreign powers and responsible for mass unemployment as well as shambolic public services.

"We want a total change of government, we don't want one or two officials fired and replaced with other corrupt ones. We want to completely uproot the government," Hussein, who did not give a last name, said in Baghdad's Tahrir Square.

"They think we will protest for one or two days then go home. No, we are staying here until the government is uprooted," he added. Others called for Iraq's religious leaders to step away from politics, too. "We don't want them, so let them leave. We also don't want the clerics - they have no business in politics," Hoda, a 59-year-old, told AFP news agency.

Protests also took place in seven other provinces, mostly in Iraq's southern. Thousands gathered in Nasiriya, Diwaniyahand Basra while hundreds hit the streets in Hilla, Samawa, and the holy city of Najaf. The demonstrations follow a previous bout of anti-government demonstrations held in early October.

More than 250 people have been killed and thousands of others wounded since the protests erupted, with security forces using tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition against those taking to the streets. Protesters' ire is focused on Iraq's entire political establishment, which many say has failed to improve the lives of the country's citizens despite a period of relative calm ushered in following the defeat of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) armed group two years ago.

Many view the country's officials as subservient to one or other of Iraq's two main allies, the United States and Iran - powers they believe are more concerned with wielding regional influence than ordinary Iraqis' needs. Despite enjoying vast oil wealth, nearly 60 percent of Iraq's 40 million people live on less than $6 a day, World Bank figures show.

Millions lack access to adequate healthcare, education, clean water and electricity, with much of the country's infrastructure in tatters.