“It is too early to talk about a vacuum, but the country is facing an imbalance that will turn into a constitutional crisis unless the matter is resolved.”
Ahmed Al-Suhail correspondent@TheSweeter Thursday, December 16, 2021 4:12
Part of a demonstration against the results of the elections near the Green Zone in Baghdad, last November 5 (AFP)
Despite the continuation of the political movement of the winning parliamentary blocs in the Iraqi elections with the aim of forming the largest bloc in parliament, the controversy continues over the election results and the delay of the Federal Supreme Court in approving them as a result of the appeals submitted by the ” Al-Fateh Alliance“.
On December 13, the Federal Supreme Court decided to postpone the date for deciding on the lawsuit of the leader of the “Al-Fateh Alliance” Hadi Al-Amiri to annul the election results.
Judicial sources indicated that the court decided to postpone the hearing until next Wednesday, December 22. This postponement is the second made by the court, while observers believe that the main purpose of the lawsuit is not to cancel the election results, but rather to put pressure on the winning political blocs to go towards consensus again and stave off the idea of a political majoritygovernment .
Expectations of a response to the “coordinating framework” lawsuit
The ” coordinating framework ” of the Iraqi Shiite forces, an alliance that includes most of the militias loyal to Iran, raises the slogan of objecting to “election fraud”, after it won 17 out of 329 seats in Parliament, compared to 48 seats in the previous parliament.
Officials in the “Al-Fateh Alliance” indicated during a press conference that there were malfunctions in the electronic voting.
Lawyer Muhammad Majid al-Saadi, representative of the “Al-Fateh Alliance”, which submitted the complaint to the Federal Court, confirmed that the aim of the lawsuit was to “cancel the election results.” In a press statement, he said, “It became clear that there were very serious and major violations that would cause a change in the general outcome.”
According to the Constitution, the Federal Court represents the highest judicial authority that adjudicates disputes that may arise as a result of actions taken by a state institution.
The legal researcher, Tariq Harb, expected that the next session of the Federal Court will include setting a date for the verdict in the case of annulment of the election results, stressing that “the court will reject the lawsuit filed by the forces of the coordinating framework.” Harb added that “re-election is almost impossible, especially with the absence of parliament and the presence of a commission that some parties object to, in addition to other unimaginable effects of legal and constitutional vacuum and chaos.” He concludes, “The current political circumstances may have influenced in some way the postponement of the verdict, but the issue will be resolved in the coming days.”
Despite all the defenses made by the “Al-Fateh Alliance” and the “Coordination Framework” forces, the United Nations Special Envoy to Iraq, Jenin Blackshart, defended the work of the High Electoral Commission, as she denied last November the existence of evidence of systematic fraud of the process. electoral.
The new Iraqi parliament cannot convene without the approval of the Federal Court on the final results, which hinders the paths of forming the next government.
Pressure on the Federal Court
Perhaps the delay in deciding the ratification of the results favors the visions that say that the possibilities of escalation are what prompted the court to postpone the ratification.
The researcher in political and security affairs, Ahmed Al-Sharifi, said that the delay in the Federal Court in deciding the appeals and ratifying the election results is “related to the pressure exerted by the coordination framework during the recent period,” noting that all these maneuvers “will not be useful in influencing the court’s decision.”
Al-Sharifi pointed to the many restrictions that complicate the task of the Coordination Framework forces, most notably that “the recent elections were surrounded by a number of legal measures, including the judicial administration. Therefore, any retreat from the demands of the Coordination Framework forces will lead to an intersection within the judicial authority.”
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He continued, “The Federal Court will not be subject to the pressures of the parties, because the announcement of its failure to manage the electoral process will mean the internationalization of the Iraqi file,” adding that “the time ceilings for ratifying the election results will not be open, especially since the judiciary is constrained by constitutional deadlines that it does not want to exceed.”
Consensus is the main goal,
and it seems that the biggest bet for the forces rejecting the results of the recent elections is related to placing maximum pressure on the Federal Court to influence the winning blocs in the elections and change the paths of forming the next government, according to Sharifi, who pointed out that this matter will not lead to “delaying the court’s approval or Circumventing the outcome of the elections to go towards a consensual government.
Al-Sharifi considered that “the option of consensus is no longer on the table in Iraq, especially with the local, international and regional will to go towards a political majority government,” ruling out “the ability of the parties to the coordination framework to escalate because they do not have, at the current stage, any tools to manage the escalation.” He added that “the international will is directed towards Iraq being the center of a settlement in the region, and this can only be achieved with a majority government that would enable the country to play an important and effective role in regional balances.”
In parallel, the leader of the Sadrist movement, Muqtada al-Sadr, who won 73 seats in the recent elections, raises the slogan of the “political majority” to form the next government, a matter that provoked the parties to the “coordinating framework” and prompted them to escalate on more than one occasion.
Observers saw that the main purpose of escalating the parties to the “coordinating framework” is to try to dissuade al-Sadr from his intention to form a majority government and return to the consensus of the “Shiite House” that was the focus of the formation of previous governments.
Ihsan al-Shammari, head of the Center for Political Thinking, commented on this by saying that the main goal of the coordinating framework forces is to try “to drain time to break up the Sadrist movement’s front and thwart its attempts to form an alliance with Sunni and Kurdish forces and go towards a majority government.”
Al-Shammari indicated that “cancelling the election results and returning them is not within the jurisdiction of the Federal Court, but it deals with this file according to the method of paying damage and dealing with impartiality regarding complaints,” noting that these parties “may try to wait for a settlement in which the Federal Court takes into account the country’s supreme interest in terms of politics, as happened on previous occasions.
Al-Shammari suggested that “the Federal Court will move towards approving the results, despite the political pressures exerted by the forces of the coordination framework.” As for the possibilities of escalation after the approval of the election results, Al-Shammari stated that “part of the coordinating framework forces will adopt escalation, but the other part will eventually go with the Sadrist movement in its options to form the next government.”
Although he expected that some parties would escalate if the election results were approved, Al-Shammari considered that “this escalation cannot develop into an armed clash, and these parties will be satisfied with trying to create a political crisis and security confusion.” He concludes, “It is too early to talk about a constitutional vacuum, but the country is facing an imbalance that will turn into a constitutional crisis if it is not resolved.”
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