IRAQ THE MODEL

I would like to bring the latest statements of Iraqi law makers to your attention, so I collected a number of these statements that surfaced after the submission of the draft of the constitution to the National Assembly two days ago:


Humam Hammodi, chief of the CDC said that the next parliament will decide the shape of the federal system in Iraq and that and that the possibility for future amendments on the constitution does exist.
He said that he and his Kurdish deputy D. Fouad Maasoum have signed the proposed draft but they're still waiting for Dr. Adnan Al-Janabi (senior Sunni MP) to sign it as well.

Hammodi announced in a press conference yesterday that the CDC has replaced the "constitutional board" that was supposed to monitor the application of the constitution by the "federal court" that is going to look into constitutional texts and solve any problems in interpreting them; this court shall include both, law experts and religious scholars.

One of the important issues is that of keeping balance in distributing governmental posts among the different components of the nation; the concept of quotas will remain valid for only another four years to be discarded after that.

The other key issue was the way of distributing the revenues of the natural resources like oil and gas which Hammodi confirmed that population counts in provinces and the state of development will influence the percentage that will go to each province so that poorer and the relatively underdeveloped cities will have a point of advantage in the distribution.

According to Al-Mada paper, the Sunni parties submitted their version of federalism (via non-Iraqi parties) to the CDC and their suggestion was to limit the formation of a federal state to the three Kurdish provinces while other federal states shall be formed (from one province only) only after the approval of the parliament.

Meanwhile, judge Wael Abdullatif (from Allawi's block) expressed his opposition to the decision of submitting the draft without the approval of all the concerned parties and said that "exceeding the deadline for writing the draft was illegal" while Jalal Addin Al-Saghir from the Sheat alliance block said that the three extra days that were requested were not an extension or a violation to the TAL but it's rather a chance for the Sunni to reach an agreement with the CDC and he criticized the way Hachim Al-Hasani (the chairman of the Assembly) announced the news and the way he ran the last session of the Assembly.

Ahmed Abdulwahhab from the Kurdish block said "we believe that we have satisfied the ambitions and hopes of the Kurdish people" adding that "federalism is the main point of disagreement with the Sunni".
Abdulwahhab added a worrisome comment about the issue of the personal affairs law; he said that we should be expecting a new wave of objections from Iraqi women since sharea still has a role in this part of the constitution.

Tariq AlHashimi, deputy secretary of the Islamic party announced that his party refuses the generalization of federalism but "if the Iraqi people say yes to this constitution then we will respect the will of the people".

Hameed Majeed Mousa, the secretary of the Communist Party said that the current draft "has many deficiencies and holes" but he also expressed his hope in reaching a better result by the end of the three-day period.


Sources, Al-Mada Al-Sabah papers and Al-Iraqia TV.

Tomorrow will apparently be exciting and decisive since it will bring the final word on the new constitution of Iraq and we at this blog will try to keep you updated on the developments of the process.