Friday, October 13, 2006
Sunnis to appeal against federalism bill
Politics
Sunni politicians accused Shiite lawmakers Thursday of using dirty tricks to push through a new law on federalism. The passage of the bill has deepened feelings among some Sunni Arabs that their voices are being ignored in the political process, where Shiite parties dominate the government and parliament. The vote on the law Wednesday was marred by a boycott by the Sunni bloc of lawmakers, along with several Shiite parties, who also reject some specifics of the bill.
The boycott delayed the vote for several hours as supporters tried to convince lawmakers to attend and scrambled to achieve a quorum, 138 of the 275 legislators. The session was closed to the public, and after repeated counts it was announced that 140 lawmakers attended. The measure was passed unanimously by a show of hands, with no count of the vote. One of the main Sunni parties, however, accused the Shiites of fudging the numbers, saying quorum had not been reached. "The session was confused and turbulent. They claimed they met the quorum but they did not. There were no more than 126 lawmakers," said Mohammed al-Daimi of the National Dialogue Council. "We will raise an appeal against the process and seek an investigation into the vote," he said.
The boycott delayed the vote for several hours as supporters tried to convince lawmakers to attend and scrambled to achieve a quorum, 138 of the 275 legislators. The session was closed to the public, and after repeated counts it was announced that 140 lawmakers attended. The measure was passed unanimously by a show of hands, with no count of the vote. One of the main Sunni parties, however, accused the Shiites of fudging the numbers, saying quorum had not been reached. "The session was confused and turbulent. They claimed they met the quorum but they did not. There were no more than 126 lawmakers," said Mohammed al-Daimi of the National Dialogue Council. "We will raise an appeal against the process and seek an investigation into the vote," he said.
The number of lawmakers who attended Wednesday's session could not be independently confirmed, and doing so is made more difficult since parliament has sometimes cut corners in procedure. When the voting took place, all hands were raised in favor, so they were not counted. The headcount for quorum is done by parliament employees, each one counts a bloc, to which they are often sympathetic. Employees gave the Associated Press differing accounts: Shiite ones said 140 lawmakers were present, while Sunni ones said only 133. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the press.
Triumphant with the bill's passage, the Shiite SCIRI leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim dismissed Sunni opponents of federalism as "Saddamists, Baathists and Takfiris (Islamic radicals)." Al-Mutlaq, of the Sunni Dialogue Front, meanwhile, said the votes of the Shiite lawmakers shouldn't be counted anyway, suggesting they were really loyal only to mainly Shiite Iran. "They hold Persian citizenship ... and so don't have legitimacy to be parliament members according to Iraqi constitution," he said.
Triumphant with the bill's passage, the Shiite SCIRI leader Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim dismissed Sunni opponents of federalism as "Saddamists, Baathists and Takfiris (Islamic radicals)." Al-Mutlaq, of the Sunni Dialogue Front, meanwhile, said the votes of the Shiite lawmakers shouldn't be counted anyway, suggesting they were really loyal only to mainly Shiite Iran. "They hold Persian citizenship ... and so don't have legitimacy to be parliament members according to Iraqi constitution," he said.
