BAGHDAD — On
Thursday, Iraq's top court provisionally suspended the newly appointed
parliament speaker, while judges consider an appeal by two fellow deputies
claiming his re-election by other lawmakers was unconstitutional.
اضافة اعلان
The Federal Supreme Court
decided "to suspend the work" of influential Sunni MP Mohammed al-Halbussi
temporarily while it investigates the process of his election.
The move affects the workings
of the parliament, as lawmakers cannot meet without the speaker.
One of parliament's first tasks
must be to elect the country's president, who will then name a prime minister
tasked with forming a new government.
The court said that despite
Halbussi's suspension, the clock has not stopped ticking on the 30-day deadline
to elect a new president that began at the parliament's inaugural session.
Iraq's post-election period
since the October 10 vote has been marred by high tensions, violence, and
allegations of vote fraud.
In multi-confessional and
multi-ethnic Iraq, the formation of governments has involved complex
negotiations ever since the 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam
Hussein.
Parliament only met Sunday for
the first time in three months since the polls, where the new members held a
swearing-in ceremony and elected the speaker.
It opened to furious arguments
between rival factions of Shiite lawmakers.
Amid the debate, Mahmud
al-Mashhadani — the oldest member of parliament who was chairing the opening
session — was taken ill and rushed to hospital.
When the parliamentary session
resumed an hour later, lawmakers re-elected speaker Halbussi from the Sunni
Taqadom party.
However, the vote was boycotted
by the Coordination Framework, a key Shiite bloc.
The appeal against the
speaker's election was filed by Mashhadani and another MP, Bassem Khachan.
Key arguments have been held
between rival Shiite blocs, each claiming to a majority able to appoint a prime
minister.
Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who
once led an anti-US militia and who opposes all foreign interference, has
repeatedly said that the next prime minister will be chosen by his movement.
It won the largest share with
73 out of the assembly's 329 seats, more than a fifth of the total.
But the Coordination Framework,
including pro-Iran groups such as the Fatah (Conquest) Alliance, the political
wing of the pro-Iran ex-paramilitary coalition Hashed Al-Shaabi, insist their
grouping is bigger.
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