The candidate for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Tawfiq Allawi has presented his resignation to form a Cabinet on Sunday, deepening the political paralysis the country has suffered since last October protests broke out against the elite that has ruled since the decline of Saddam Hussein.
"There are some political parties that are not being serious and that only think about their own interests," Tawfiq denounced in a speech on Iraqi state television hours after Parliament had to postpone for the second time the session in which it was to vote the new Government, because the necessary quorum is not achieved.
Tawfiq was appointed prime minister on February 1 by Iraqi President Kurdish Barham Salim, two months after the resignation presented by Adel Abdul Mahdi and following the inability of the Hemiciclo political parties to agree on a successor. The 65-year-old architect had been Minister of Communications twice after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and had the support of the Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr.
In a statement, Al Sadr has backed a resignation that has held the parties responsible for blocking the way. His fleeting adventure as "premier" has ended at the last minute since this Sunday. "As a sign of the confidence they gave me when they commissioned me to form a Government, I promised that I would resign if I found any political pressure. I had promised to set up an independent Executive, without representatives of political parties," Tawfiq explained.
According to the Iraqi constitution, he had until Monday to achieve the pleasure of his honorable members. The sessions of the Hemicycle have been postponed since last Thursday, before the boycott of Kurds and Sunnis and the reluctance of the parties, who aspired to place their members in front of the Portfolios of the Cabinet and were suspicious of some of the measures such as end of foreign interference or public scrutiny of Shia militias.
"I tried by all means to save Iraq from drifting into the unknown and solve the current crisis but during the negotiations I faced many problems," he has slipped. "I ask the president to accept my apologies. I cannot fulfill the responsibility for which he nominated me," he has claimed before calling to keep the protests. "I hope that peaceful demonstrations continue so that the sacrifices you have made are not in vain. I join you," he added.
His frightened deepens the crisis that is going through the country since the outbreak of protests last October in Baghdad and the main cities in the south of the country, mostly Shiite. Since then, government repression has claimed more than 600 lives and left more than 25,000 injured. This Sunday a protester has died and another 24 have been injured at the hands of the security forces in the protests of the central Bagdadí square in Tahrir, which maintains the pulse despite the reduction in the number of participants.
Popular anger, which rejected the designation of Tawfiq, blames the "establishment" that was born after Saddam's fall from endemic corruption, high unemployment rates - especially bleeding among the youth population -, interference from Iran and the United States and the absence of public services, after years of broken promises.
After his resignation, several possible scenarios are opened. "The search for a new candidate begins again. There is a possibility that the Council of Representatives will debate the matter and agree on a candidate to send to the president, who can nominate him or elect a different candidate, as granted by the Constitution" Farhad Alaaldin, former political advisor to the Iraqi presidency, tells EL MUNDO. "The candidate for prime minister has lost his chance and on the way he made great mistakes that confronted him with the political elite that should vote for him," he adds.
In the most immediate future, Iraq could run out of prime minister. Abdul Mahdi, on duty since December, could leave office this Monday. Late this Sunday, he has released a statement denying the rumors that have circulated on social networks about his intention to remain "premier" and announcing that he will communicate his intention on Monday.
To the popular outrage was added earlier this year the murder of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a US mission on Iraqi soil, which prompted the approval in Parliament of a petition demanding the withdrawal of foreign troops. Earlier this Monday two Katyusha rockets have fallen in the armored Green Zone of Baghdad without causing injuries. One of them has impacted in the immediate vicinity of the US embassy.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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