Iraq parliament chaos
July 1, 2014
Despite calls from world leaders and senior religious figures to unite to defeat jihadist militants, the first meeting of Iraq's new parliament following April elections ended less than two hours after it began on Tuesday, with the lawmakers failing to make progress in choosing a new speaker, president or prime minister.
Acting speaker Mahdi al-Hafidh ordered a half-hour break after the discussion about candidates for a new speaker quickly descended into walkouts and verbal threats.
When a Kurdish lawmaker, Najiba Najib, called on the central government to "end the blockade" and send funds to the autonomous Kurdistan region, Kadhim al-Sayadi, a lawmaker in the bloc of incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, responded by threatening to "crush the heads" of Iraq's Kurds, according to the AFP news agency. Several Sunni lawmakers also walked out when mention was made of the Sunni ISIS militant group, which is taking over areas in northwestern Iraq.
When the parliamentary session reopened, so many of the 328 lawmakers had left that the parliament no longer had a quorum (a minimum number of parliamentarians present), so al-Hafidh announced that parliament would reconvene in a week if deals could be reached on the senior posts.
Month of violence
Current Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under intense pressure to step aside, although his bloc won the most seats in April's elections. He is accused by the country's Sunnis and Kurds of breaking promises and favoring his Shiite majority. The long-held grievances by the Sunnis are seen as a contributing factor to the success of ISIS, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which has renamed itself the Islamic State (IS) and declared a caliphate in the areas under its control.
The United Nations has announced that at least 2,400 Iraqis have been killed in June's violence, and more than 2,200 wounded. The numbers do not include those in Anbar province, which is largely controlled by Sunni militants. Most of the victims were civilians.
se/slk (AP, AFP, dpa)