Iraq Faces Biggest Political Deadlock Since Saddam Hussein Ousting

BAGHDAD – After over six months of protests, Iraq faces the biggest political deadlock since the ousting of dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.On 1 October, thousands of people took to the streets against the corruption in one of OPEC’s biggest oil producers, calling for better basic services.
The rallies, which left over 550 people dead, forced Adil Abdul-Mahdi to resign as prime minister on 29 November, although he is still interim-ruler of Iraq until a new government is formed.On 1 February, President Barham Salih named Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as prime minister, but after a month of unsuccessful negotiations among Shiite and Sunni Muslim and the Christian minority, he stepped down on 1 March due to a lack of quorum in the Parliament.The parties “imposed obstacles before the birth of an independent government,” Allawi said as he denounced the deadlock after years of war.”
Iraq is now in its most severe political stalemate since the removal of Saddam from power in 2003. It is the culmination of years of decay of institutions, political acumen, and the breeding of a culture of corruption, poor governance, patronage and nepotism,” Hafsa Halawa, a Middle East Institute researcher told EFE.
Three years after the withdrawal of US troops following the invasion to Iraq, the Islamic State terror organization emerged in 2014.
The Islamic State terrorist organization dominated vast territories in Iraq before being defeated in 2017.
Under these circumstances, Iraq has yet to begin an institutional rebuild.”The political situation in Iraq now is going through one of its worst moments” since 2003 because of the “failure of the political groups” to carry out reforms, Abdul Aziz al Jabury a professor at the University of Baghdad told EFE.”They have not even managed to maintain the infrastructure inherited from the previous regime.
The widespread corruption in Iraq, supported by these parties, has led to the collapse” of the country, the analyst added.Protesters called for, among other demands, a non-sectarian government in a country where religion is more important than ideology.Politicians, however, did not meet those demands.
The former Parliament member Dia al-Asadi, who led the bloc of Shiite influential cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in the 2014 elections, said meeting these demands is difficult because “no one block of protesters’ demands can represent all other factions.”“The rejection of names (of candidates for prime minister) is just tactics used by protestors to win time, to complicate politicians’ tasks and fatigue them so that they give up or resign,” he added.But the political blocs have failed to agree on an independent political figure who has not been part of any previous government as per the protesters’ demands.”The political elite have clearly decided to refuse to give in to protestor demands or the wider will of the people of Iraq to institute reform or change course.
Instead, they are rallying around one another to protect each other,” Halawa said.Farhad Alaaldin, the advisor of former Iraqi president Fuad Masum, told EFE that Allawi’s mission was impossible because “the (Parliament) members revolted against their leaders who wanted to have Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi as PM, they refused to go in and setup quorum,” despite agreeing to back him in principle.Now there are two possible scenarios.According to Alaaldin, either the main Shiite parties agree on a candidate for prime minister or Parliament puts forward three names for the president to choose from.For Al-Assadi neither option is viable:”The situation is open to all scenarios, but an interim, partially-endorsed care-taker government with a very limited mandate is the most likely one.”“Given the protests and other recent events in Iraq and the Region, we are in a unique and difficult situation, it can lead to the worse, but it can also lead to a new threshold of reform and correction,” he added.