COUNCIL OF REPRESENTATIVES IN DELAY BEFORE CABINET VOTE
After meeting for a short period, the Council of Representatives has suspended its work for the time being. It is not clear when it will reconvene.
Speaker Mohammed al-Halbusi brought parliament to order on Thursday afternoon (January 24) in order to vote on Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi’s cabinet nominees for the justice and education ministries.
At the start of the session, there were 168 members of parliament in the chamber, meeting quorum by a mere three deputies. In past voting sessions over Abdul Mahdi’s nominees, parliament has had a tendency to lose quorum during disputes between the parties, derailing the approval progress.
It was not immediately clear if that was the reason for the suspension.
Parliament was to have voted yesterday on the nominees, but voting was delayed by a debate on the Baghdad governorship and a lengthy vote on the federal budget for 2019.
On Monday, Abdul Mahdi nominated Safana Hussein for education minister and Judge Arkan Qadr for justice minister.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party have been battling over the justice ministry post and it was not clear whether either would accept Qadr, with some members of each party casting doubt on the choice.
Al-Fateh MP Fadil al-Fatlawi said on Wednesday that "the vote on the ministries of interior and defense will go to the second legislative term of the Council of Representatives," stressing that the Bina and Islah blocs had agreed to do so, putting off a decision that has deadlocked parliament for several months.
