BAGHDAD, 13 May 2006 — Iraq was inching closer yesterday to getting its long-awaited new government, with the outlines of a multi-confessional coalition slowly emerging and a deal expected in the next few days. “The negotiations for the formation of the government are ongoing and Prime Minister-designate Nuri Al-Maliki is looking for independent personalities to run the ministries of interior and defense,” Parliament’s Deputy Speaker Khalid Al-Attiya said.
“We hope in the coming days we will select a candidate.” Attiya told AFP the key defense portfolio would likely go to a Sunni member of former Premier Iyad Allawi’s Iraqi National List, rather than one of the main Sunni parties. He added that control of the all-important Interior Ministry, which is responsible for security, will go to a Shiite, but one without strong party ties.
“Maliki wants to give the (defense and interior) posts to candidates that are competent, honest, and transparent with no links to any party,” he said. The current interior minister, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a key part of the Shiite alliance, has been criticized for not reining in Shiite-linked death squads.
Sunnis, meanwhile, are hoping to gain the ministries of health and education, which the Shiites would like to hold, insiders say. Attiya added that the Oil Ministry is expected to go to respected independent Shiite Hussein Shahristani over two other Shiite candidates.
“He has all the necessary qualifications,” Attiya said, pointing out that the former nuclear scientist is well-known abroad and has a reputation for “honesty and competence.” The revelation prompted the Fadhila Party, a member of the Shiite alliance, who had been backing acting minister Hashem Al-Hashemi for the position, to pull out of talks. “We have taken this decision because the mentality of the negotiations is dominated by personal interests and they have forgotten the main goal is to serve the Iraqi people,” said Fadhila spokesman Sabah Al-Saadi.
The Kurdish Alliance, meanwhile, is said to have been promised the foreign affairs, housing and construction, water and irrigation, industry and human rights portfolios.
Meanwhile, both Sunni and Shiite religious leaders yesterday called for a quick end to the political wrangling. “Our words are for the brothers preparing to take on the leadership of this nation and to make haste in forming a new government without paying attention to peoples’ ethnic and sectarian background,” Mahmoud Mahdi Al-Summaidayi said in a Friday sermon at the Sunni Umm Al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad.
