ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Lawmakers convened in Erbil on Tuesday to elect the nine-member legal committee – parliament’s most senior body. However, due to its ongoing boycott, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) missed the session.
The Erbil parliament has 15 committees. With the power to rule on the legality of policy and procedure, the legal committee is highly influential.
“The first work of the committee is to amend the presidency law,” one MP told Rudaw.
The office of the Kurdistan Region presidency was frozen after the resignation of Masoud Barzani in October 2017.
However, just seven members of the committee were elected on Tuesday. The vacant seats are said to be reserved for the PUK. Full details will be announced soon.
Begard Talabani, head of the PUK bloc in parliament, told Rudaw: “To take part in the Kurdistan parliament sessions, as the PUK bloc, we are waiting for meetings and an agreement between the KDP and PUK politburos.”
A long awaited (but highly contentious) parliamentary session was held on February 18 – the first since the Region’s parliamentary election of September 30 last year.
The PUK – the Region’s second biggest party – boycotted the session because it was not satisfied with its initial gentlemen’s deal with the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
The PUK-KDP deadlock revolves largely around the issue of who should govern the disputed province of Kirkuk.
With the combined numbers of the KDP, the Change Movement (Gorran), and other smaller parties, the parliament has been able to meet the legal quorum to elect candidates without the PUK.
Not all of those smaller parties were satisfied with Tuesday’s developments, however. The Kurdistan Islamic Union (KIU) was outraged its MPs failed to secure a seat on the legal committee.
“Unfortunately, the current leadership team started its first session with a major legal violation by dedicating today’s session solely to the legal committee while, according to law, all the committees must be voted on at once,” a KIU representative told a press conference.
The party said the move was designed to “punish” the KIU bloc.
This is a developing story...