Iraq vacates government after five months

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Iraqi deputies have given their confidence last night to the former intelligence chief Moustafa al-Kazimi who has just formed a government after five months of vacancy in a country going through its worst economic and social crisis.

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Of the 329 deputies in the most divided parliament in Iraq's recent history, only 255 had moved. Gloved and masked because of the coronavirus epidemic, they voted in favor of Prime Minister  Moustafa al-Kazimi . The 53-year-old former intelligence chief is one of the few political figures to have entered Washington and Tehran. This vote ends the mandate of Adel Abdel Mahdi, who has resigned for five months .

MEPs also gave confidence to 15 ministers on a cabinet that normally has 22. The key positions in Oil and Foreign Affairs are still vacant, even as Iraq is going through the worst economic crisis in its recent history after having given its oil revenues - its only source of foreign exchange - divided by five in a year.

The Interior Ministry reports to General Othmane al-Ghanemi, Chief of the Defense Staff, regularly seen in Syria alongside the Iranians and the Russians to coordinate the fight against the Islamic State (IS) organization. That of Sports and Youth to the very popular Adnane Dirjal, former captain of the national football team and that of Finance to Ali Allawi, academic and former minister.

Mustafa al-Kazimi said he wanted to manage "  the transition  " before "  early elections  " for which he gave no timetable, while saying he was aware "  of the crises that follow and accumulate for the worst since 2003  ", when the Americans overthrew the dictator Saddam Hussein. In October, Iraq was the scene of a popular revolt unprecedented by its spontaneity and its scale, demanding a complete renewal of the political system and of those who compose it. Authorities responded with a crackdown that killed more than 550 people, and a plan for early elections, without specifying when or how.

Since the fall, the country has been mired in political slump. The parliament only met once at the start of the year to vote for the expulsion of American troops after the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad by the United States. Since then, the deputies have neither adopted the major reforms demanded by the demonstrators nor studied the 2020 budget, not yet voted but already slashed by the lion's share: that of oil, which represents more than 90% of state revenue .

(With AFP )

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