Re: from Juan Cole: judicial coup for oil law?

[ken hanly <northsunm@xxxxxxxxx>]

A commentator on Cole's blog points out that there is
a provision in the constitution for replacing MPs. The
faction from which the MP comes simply appoints the
missing MP. Of course I suppose Maliki could try and
act fast and push the oil bill through before
appointments were made but I expect it is more likely
after all this and the cabinet shuffle his government
would disintegrate anyway. I think that Maliki's days
are numbered even with US backing- or maybe because of
it.

Cheers, Ken Hanly

--- Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> >Parliamentarians from the Sadr Bloc vowed that they
> would resist
> Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plans to dismiss 5
> out of 6 cabinet
> ministers from their party. The Sadrists have 32
> seats in the Iraqi
> legislature, and their support was key to the
> election of al-Maliki
> last spring.
>
> KarbalaNews.net reports in Arabic that al-Maliki
> gave an interview in
> which he said that high judicial authorities are
> preparing indictments
> against members of parliament for involvement in
> militia and death
> squad activity. Maybe al-Maliki thinks he does not
> need the Sadrist
> MPs because so many of them will soon be in prison.
>
> Indeed, the scale of the indictments against sitting
> Iraqi
> representatives and officials hinted at by al-Maliki
> suggests a
> judicial coup.
>
> Given that Sunni and Sadrist MPs have been loudest
> in denouncing the
> new oil law, if large numbers of them were
> incarcerated, it would also
> make it easier for al-Maliki to get the legislation
> enacted.
>
> There are no mechanisms for by-elections to the
> Iraqi parliament to my
> knowledge, so that the parliamentarians that are
> arrested will likely
> not be replaced until late 2009. The arrests could
> dramatically alter
> the relative proportion of representatives of
> various communities. No
> Kurds will be arrested, since their Peshmerga
> militia has been
> legalized, so their bloc will be strengthened.<
>
>
> --
> Jim Devine / "The truth is more important than the
> facts." -- Frank Lloyd Wright
>


Blog:  http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html