News Analysis: Iraq pushes forth with sweeping reform plan

The Iraqi parliament on Tuesday voted unanimously for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's crucial reform plan that put Iraq at crossroads after recent demonstrations against corruption and poor services.

The deep sectarian differences in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 forced the post-invasion governments to be built on what so-called political consensus and power-sharing agreements.

However, such kind of governance resulted in fragile and flabby governments that were handcuffed by incompetent officials who were the main reason behind corruption and the creation of unfeasible ministries, agencies and other institutions.

"The large numbers of officials and workers in the post-invasion governments and unusual increase in the governments' institutions put heavy burden on the state budget, leading to failure in rebuilding the country's infrastructure, including electricity," Sabah al-Sheikh, a professor at Baghdad University told Xinhua.

It has been long time since September 2014 when Abadi formed his cabinet and pledged to carry out reforms to the fragile political process, but the powerful political opponents who gained their powers from the sectarian division, made it hard for him to break their powerful influence.

Most of country's political parties have built their own influence and power through years of bloody sectarian turf war across the country, and most have strong links and endless support from several neighboring countries.

"Each party is ready to fight to save their gains which included the state ministries that became part of their properties and were working for their interests not for the people of Iraq. Therefore, Abadi alone cannot confront those parties, including his own Islamic Dawa Party," Sheikh said.

"But today things are different, Abadi is armed with angry demonstrations and full support from the Marjiyah (Shiite religious leadership)," Sheikh added.

Dozens of thousands of angry Iraqis took to the streets on Friday in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad and several other cities in south to protest against slack public services, power shortage, and massive corruption.

In the same day, Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani asked Abadi to be "more daring and courageous in his reforms."

"The government should make important decisions and take strong measures to fight corruption and achieve social justice. He should identify who is hampering the reform, whoever they are." Sistani said in his speech during the weekly Friday prayer in the holy city of Karbala, which was read by his representative Ahmed al-Safi.

The powerful pressure by the protests by all factions of the Iraqi people and significant support by Sistani, Abadi found himself strong enough to announce his ambitious reform plan, and such huge pressure forced the infighting political parties to show rare unity in backing Abadi's plan in both the cabinet and the parliament.

It is true that Iraq since 2003 has been unstable and haunted by ghosts of chaos, and unable to revive due to deep sectarian and ethnic polarization, but Abadi's reform plan came break the rules of the sectarian division.

Now, after the Iraqi parliament approved Abadi's reform plan, some observers see that the lack of trust between the Iraqi political parties could be an obstacle that might hamper some of the reforms.

Some parties would show that such reforms, or part of them, could marginalize their faction from the political scene. They believe that Abadi's Dawa Party want to dominate the power for their own party.

Such fears pushed Abadi to send a message of assurance to other factions when said in a statement that "the reforms were not aimed at dominating power nor to override the constitutional frameworks, but to preserve the state of citizenship away from individual and sectarian domination, and not handcuff the state institutions with sectarian quota system."

"We have no way else, but to response to voice of demonstrators and the Marjiyah," Abadi said in a statement.

If succeed, Abadi's reforms could change the future of the Iraqi state positively and would promote stability and economic situations, which would certainly serve the security situation particularly as Iraq is facing a serious threat of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group which seizes large parts of the country.

But, if the leading political parties tried to circumvent the reform plan in order to preserve their gains, such move would spark overwhelming outrage among Iraqis who have been suffering for years from chaos, instability, poverty and lack of infrastructure. Endit