Abdul Mahdi sends an open letter about the delay in forming a government

INA – Baghdad - LIVE UPDATES

PM Adel Abdul Mahdi sent an open letter to the President, Speaker and the Members of Parliament regarding the delay of the formation of the government.

“I submitted my resignation on November 29^th, 2019, and we are reaching out to the end of April 2020. No new government has been formed so far. The brothers Allawi and Al-Zorfi were assigned to Prime Minister position and they were not successful. Recently, Brother Al-Kadhemi was supposed to form the government that was appointed before the next 9 May,” included the letter.

He added,” This reveals either constitutional breaches or serious deficiencies in constitutional applications and political traditions, or defects of prevailing concepts and behaviors of political forces, or societal oppositions that hinder each other, or pressing regional and international balances, and mostly all the above mentioned.”

“We exerted and exerting our utmost efforts and promoted to provide support and assistance to the success of the duty-holders, apart from our proximity or distances from any of them, to realize that the current situation is the most dangerous. A daily caretaker government and the survival of an independent prime minister with limited powers in these complicated situations is the worst option. Therefore, I am sending this message to my brothers and sisters that this may be the last opportunity to prevent reaching a completely dead end,”

“I realize the courage of leaders and officials, and that they sacrificed their lives and themselves for the sake of the country, so their positions are difficult to understand when they do not sacrifice their own visions and the interests of their powers in the face of this crisis that threatens the country. My perception is that there are wrong views - if they are not corrected and agree on common rules of conduct - then we will remain in a continuous cycle,”

“1- The concept of the independent minister is not an absolute truth, but rather a temporary partial practice required by the reality of the state of political powers in successive governments, and the injustice of the election law and the law of parties, as they are against the will of the voters, which has resulted in quotas and a monopoly of power from the highest summits to the lowest. So the call of the independents came in response to all this,”

“2- Many say they exercise their right to demand specific ministries according to the election results. Their argument is what is happening in other countries. We saw that this is a false comparison. There, majority governments form one party or a coalition of parties, according to the electoral curricula. In those countries, there are integrated practices that make the party drives their audience and the public live the life of its party. The public contributes to various channels in the elections of party leaders and charts of programs, while we are far from all of this. The separation between the public and organizations is getting bigger, without serious treatment. Despite some progress in the last elections, but we have not finally settled on the appropriate system that achieves the political majority, is matched by the political minority or the opposition, and protects and adapts fairly to national equilibrium so that the concept of citizenship can prevail. The participation of all government winners distorted the work of the House of Representatives from large blocks supporting the government, and others opposing it, to individual and collective conflicts over the sources of power, locations, and ability in the country, and blowing up the concept of separation of powers. Rather, it is what has generated governments wrestling in the cabinet. All this has lost the country and the unity of the philosophy that organizes its work and the ability and integrity of the authorities to lead and manage the country,”

“3- The claim of some to specific locations, such as a specific ministry, does not make sense. If a program in this ministry told me, this violates the government curriculum, which leaves no room for doubt that the desire will be to benefit from the ministry instead of benefiting in it according to a unified program for the government,”

“4- In our circumstances, it will not be possible to have the paties completely absent from the sites and the curricula, and it will not be possible to deprive the designate of the right of choices to nominate, accept and reject. It is they who will vote in the House of Representatives, and it is they who will bear the greatest responsibility in the government. Accordingly, it is necessary to reach an agreement in polling the opinion of the parties or in nominating those who meet the conditions agreed upon nationally, and allows - in return - the person in charge of the last word to choose the ministers, especially since his decision will not be final, as the last word will return to the parliament in a negative or positive vote,”

He also added, “Yes, the situation is not ideal, but if we put the worst prospects in the event of failure, and we all have the necessary flexibility, we can reach a compromise. If this third attempt at commissioning did not succeed, does anyone expect the fourth or fifth attempt to succeed? Especially since our resignation was in response to a call from the Highest Religious Authority – Marja’ and popular forces to find a solution to the impasse that the country has reached,”

“The goal was not to change people, but to change equations. The continued resignation of the Prime Minister of the caretaker government is the survival of the previous equations and leads to inertia and emptiness inevitably. That is why we cannot continue. My answer was unequivocal by rejecting all those who exposed to me and with insistence from key and influential parties that they are ready to facilitate the return from the resignation, especially since it did not vote on it in the House of Representatives. The equation of my government, under the conditions mentioned, is no longer able to properly manage the country's situation. My understanding is that any government in our current circumstances must satisfy two basic matters;

1- National agreement or a majority that can support the government, which the current government has practically lacked, even with a theoretically availability. What was mentioned above about the parliament, the blocs and the government is sufficient, and the signal is understood.

2- The international and regional imbalance in Iraq was not necessarily because of a mistake we made, but to extremist policies imposed by others, and no Iraqi national government can match them. When the friendship of one side becomes conditional upon the hostility of another friend, Iraq - according to our national experiences - will gain little and lose a lot,”

“In my message on 2/3/2020, I called for an extraordinary session to settle the election law, the directories and the commission, and to set the date of 4/12/2020 as the final date for the elections, and nothing happened. As if the crisis was desired to continue. There is no agreement on a new government, nor does it define an end to the crisis through early elections. The result will necessarily be the continuation of the day-to-day government and its full responsibility for difficult and complicated situations, which cannot be continued,”

“Therefore, we call for having the required flexibility and reaching compromise solutions to form a new government that can administer elections and have the powers required to manage the country's crises, especially amid huge developments that great countries have become concerned about their future, including the collapse of global economies, oil prices, the Corona pandemic, and the persistence of terrorism and other thorny matters,”

“With the reaffirmation, I will take the appropriate and decisive stance in light of the results you will reach in the next few days. I wish you all the best of luck. May the peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you,”