Sunnis and Kurds walked out of the first session of Iraq’s new Parliament yesterday after Shi’ites failed to name a prime minister to replace Nuri al-Maliki, dimming any prospect of an early national unity government to save Iraq from collapse.
The United States, United Nations, Iran and Iraq’s own Shi’ite clergy have pushed hard for politicians to come up with an inclusive government to hold the fragmenting country together as Sunni insurgents bear down on Baghdad.
The leader of the al-Qaeda offshoot spearheading the insurgency, the Islamic State, has declared a “caliphate” in the lands it has seized in Iraq and Syria.
Its leader yesterday vowed to avenge what he said were wrongs committed against Muslims worldwide.
Despite the urgency, the Iraqi Parliament’s first session since its election in April collapsed when Sunnis and Kurds refused to return from a recess to the parliamentary chamber after Shi’ites failed to name a prime minister.
Parliament is not likely to meet again for at least a week, leaving Iraq in political limbo and Maliki clinging to power as a caretaker, rejected by Sunnis and Kurds.
If there is a new policy with a new prime minister, we will deal with them positively
Under a governing system put in place after the removal of Saddam Hussein, the prime minister has always been a member of the Shi’ite majority, the speaker of Parliament a Sunni and the largely ceremonial president a Kurd.
The Shi’ite bloc known as the National Alliance, in which Maliki’s State of Law coalition is the biggest group, has met repeatedly in recent days to bargain over the premiership but has so far been unable either to endorse Maliki for a third term or to name an alternative.
Osama al-Nujaifi, a leading Sunni politician, former speaker and strong foe of Maliki, warned that “without a political solution, the sound of weapons will be loud, and the country will enter a black tunnel”.
He said his bloc did not have a candidate for a speaker so far and was waiting to see who the National Alliance would nominate for prime minister.
“If there is a new policy with a new prime minister, we will deal with them positively. Otherwise the country will go from bad to worse,” Nujaifi said.
Baghdad can ill-afford further delays. Government troops have been battling for three weeks against fighters led by the group formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
This week it shortened its name to the Islamic State and declared its leader “caliph” – historic title of successors of the Prophet Mohammad who ruled the whole Muslim world.
Speaking for the first time since then, the group’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi vowed revenge for what he said were wrongs committed against Muslims, calling on fighters to avenge them.