Roundup: Iraq reshuffles cabinet lineup amid push for substantial reform

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi Thursday presented a list of candidates to the parliament for a new cabinet lineup.

The move marks substantial shakeup in his old cabinet that pushed a firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to end sit-in protest.

Abadi held a meeting with the parliament speaker and handed him over a list of 14 candidates for the new cabinet, a parliament official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Abadi's list did not include the ministers of defense and interior for security reasons, because their ministries are in full combat with Islamic State (IS) militants who seized swathes of territories in northern and western Iraq.

The premier also reduced his cabinet lineup to 16 members out of 22 in his old cabinet.

Some of the names of the cabinet candidates have been leaked to the local media, which included Sharif Ali bin al-Hussein for the Foreign, Nizar Mohammed Salim for oil ministry and Ali Allawi for finance ministry.

After the meeting, Abadi attended the parliament session and delivered a speech, in which he said that the reform will include over 100 of other high ranking officials, and promised that more senior officials to be replaced or sacked.

The parliament then decided to continue discussing the 14 candidates and will vote on them within 10 days, while the approval on his decisions over other high-ranking officials will be within a month.

After Abadi's announcement, Powerful Sadr cleric said he would end his sit-in protest and ordered thousands of his followers who were camping outside the Green Zone, to withdraw peacefully.

On March 28, Sadr and his supporters had given Abadi a "final deadline", telling him he had to present a new list by Thursday or face that sit-in protests would turn to be inside the Green Zone, which houses main government offices and some foreign ministries.

In a televised speech from his tent at the gate of the government district, Sadr told his followers "end your sit-in in front of the Green Zone, and you have to withdraw coordinately."

Sadr hailed Abadi's new cabinet as part of comprehensive reform saying that Abadi "has made a brave step when he announce full shake-up except for the defense and interior ministries. This was one of the fruits of your sit-in protest."

However, Sadr whose al-Ahrar parliamentary bloc holds 34 seats in the 328-seat parliament and three cabinet posts, pledged to continue in peaceful demonstrations after each Friday weekly prayer in the afternoon in order to keep pressure of the parliament and the political blocs to vote in the new cabinet.

For the past few weeks, Sadr and thousands of Sadr's followers gathered in downtown Baghdad, demanding Abadi to come up with substantial reforms, including government reshuffle, better services and an end to corruption.

The reforms were also aimed at confronting the country's economic crisis due to the sharp decrease in oil prices in global markets at the time that the security forces are in full-combat with IS terrorist group in northern and western Iraq.

Last year, Abadi's reform plan, first gained popular support, but with the passing of time the reforms fell short to convince demonstrators who continued their protests and demanded that Abadi be more aggressive against the political parties that benefited from corruption and could reverse the reforms to their own good. Endit