English.news.cn 2012-06-21 21:14:33 [RSS] [Feedback] [Print] [Copy URL] [More]

BAGHDAD, June 21 (Xinhua) -- The speaker of the Iraqi parliament said Thursday that some Iraqi politicians insist on their demand to summon Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in a bid to oust him from his post by a no-confidence motion.

Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi told reporters that within two to three days the lawmakers will submit a request for inquiry against Maliki and then the parliament will decide to go through no- confidence motion.

"Prime Minister Maliki's (request of) inquiry is constitutional and is supported by documents, and those political blocs who met in Arbil (the capital city of Iraq's northern Kurdish region) are going on in their project," Nujafi said at a news conference here.

The Iraqi constitution states that at least 25 lawmakers may direct a parliamentary inquiry of the prime minister after at least seven days of submitting their request.

"The political blocs are looking seriously into the issue of the no-confidence motion," Nujaifi said, adding that "replacing Maliki is an accepted option by most of the members of the Council of Representatives (parliament)."

He said a new prime minister will be chosen from the (Shiite) National Alliance.

The country's constitution also stipulates that the no- confidence motion against the prime minister can be carried out on a request either by the country's president to the parliament, or by one-fifth of the 325 members of parliament (MPs), who must submit their request for no-confidence at least seven days after an inquiry for the prime minister in the parliament.

However, the demand by the one-fifth of the 325 MPs, or 65 MPs, will need at least 163 votes in their favor to get the motion passed.

On June 10, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected the no- confidence motion against Maliki due to a lack of quorum after he received a request signed by 160 lawmakers, but 11 of them decided to withdraw and two others requested to suspend their signatures.

By Talabani's rejection, Maliki's opponents will have to go through the other constitutional way of requesting an inquiry for Maliki, then gathering one-fifth of the 325 lawmakers to request a motion.

Soon after the U.S. troops fully withdrew from Iraq late last year, the country was plunged into a serious political row as Maliki sought to arrest his political rival Tariq al-Hashimi, a leading member of the Iraqia bloc, on allegation of terror-related activities.

Leading politicians and lawmakers from the Sunni-backed Iraqia bloc, the Kurdish coalition, and the Ahrar bloc loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, as well as some independents, are in deep dispute with Maliki as they frequently accused his Shiite- dominated government of killing the democratic process in the country.

They also accused the prime minister of evading his commitments to implementing the terms of a power-sharing deal that he signed with rival political parties.

The deal, also known as the Arbil agreement, was signed in November 2010 in Kurdistan in northern Iraq. It paved the way for Maliki's fragile partnership government after Iraq's political rivals ended their differences that lasted eight months following the parliamentary elections in March 2010.
Editor: Fang Yang https://news.xinhuanet.com/english/wo..._131668897.htm