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1st LD: Iraqi parliament sacks speaker, two deputies

Xinhua, April 14, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Iraqi parliament on Thursday sacked its speaker and two deputies after a vote by the lawmakers who were in sit-in protest inside the parliament building, official television reported.

The decision was made during an emergency session of some 171 lawmakers headed by Adnan al-Janabi, an elder member of the Parliament, after the speaker Salim al-Jubouri and his two deputies Humam Hamoudi and Aram Sheikh Mohammed did not attend the session, the state-run channel said.

Janabi and the other lawmakers ended their session and said that they will convene on Saturday.

However, al-Jubouri, the Sunni speaker and his Shiite and Kurdish deputies, who were at the building during the session but inside the parliament hall, rejected the decision as unconstitutional.

Jubouri's Sunni political bloc, known as Powers Union, held a press conference immediately after the controversial session and announced its rejection to the sack, saying the session lacks quorum as only less than 164 members attended the session, which are half of the 328-seat parliament.

The Sunni lawmakers threatened to go to the federal court to abolish the decision.

The sit-in lawmakers protested the repeated delay by the parliament speaker Salim al-Jubouri over a proposed vote for new cabinet candidates as part of reforms suggested by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Legislators from various parties were demanding an end to the quota system, created following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to which Iraq's resources and control would be divided among the political parties representing Iraq's ethnic and sectarian factions.

In the past few weeks, powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and thousands of his followers gathered in downtown Baghdad, demanding Abadi to come up with substantial reforms, including a government reshuffle, better services and an end to corruption.

The reforms also need to address the country's economic crisis due to the sharp drop in global oil prices whilst security forces are fighting the Islamic State militants in the north and west of Iraq. Endit