Iraqi lawmakers appear to be mired in minutiae

BAGHDAD: One lawmaker found the syntax of the new bylaws somehow wanting. He looked vainly around Iraq’s assembly chambers for a grammarian. Another insisted on Sunday that the ground rules being written for Iraq’s elected officials must dub them ‘representatives’, not merely ‘members’ of parliament. Why, asked a third fledgling legislator, didn’t their proposed bylaws make it clear they held supreme authority over government spending, as well?

A half-hour debate sputtered along without a vote or much clear direction. One article completed, almost. One hundred fifty-one to go. At this pace, groaned one lawmaker, it would take two months for the new parliament just to write the rules for its own internal operations.

That might be viewed as official dithering even in a stable nation, much less a tormented state like Iraq, where violence surged again on Sunday with the deaths of at least 25 Iraqis and four soldiers from the US-led forces, and where political observers are growing increasingly restive about the slow progress toward forming a coalition government.

“I feel defeated,” said Ismael Zayer, editor of the daily newspaper Al Sabah Al Jadid, after watching on TV as the legislators made no apparent progress. “I lost 25 years of my life fighting for democracy and being in prison and being away from my kids. And everything was for nothing.”

Prime Minister-designate Nouri Maliki has a May 22 deadline to pick a cabinet. He had hoped that task would be over by now.

Instead, a settlement has been elusive because of bickering among now-dominant Shias, Sunnis and Kurds, as well as fighting within each of those groups. Maliki is reported to be considering the possibility of naming his government without including choices for the crucial ministries that control the army, police and foreign service. Those posts would be filled later.

The Bush administration and some leaders here have high hopes that they can begin to reduce the bloodshed once a permanent government is in place. But, on a sweltering Sunday, lawmakers were left to argue over rules of order and how to conduct their debate, as speaker Mahmoud Mashadani urged them to move more quickly.

“You’re killing us. You’re killing us,” Mashadani quipped at one point. “Do you know how many times you have asked to talk today?”

Although the target of the remark was unclear, a young cleric insisted in a soprano voice: “We have the right to object!”

Abbas Bayati of the main Shia coalition said that even the ‘mechanism for holding the discussions is unclear’, as Iraqis learn to govern themselves after more than three decades of totalitarian rule by Saddam Hussein. “It’s unclear what we are supposed to do,” Bayati said.

Fuad Masoom of the Kurdish alliance said the halting progress should not be surprising.

“Members of the assembly are so limited in experience, with no previous parliamentary work, that they tend to discuss every little thing,” Masoom said. “They need more time to practice working as a legislature.”

Several lawmakers said they were trying only to be meticulous about rules they and future assemblies would have to live with. They agreed to take two more days to consider the bylaws and to deliver suggested improvements to a committee assigned to draw up the rules.

As he strolled out of the convention hall in Baghdad’s Green Zone where the parliament meets, Sheikh Jamal Batikh of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s secular slate said, “We’ll just take two more days to work it out.”

Many Iraqis, however, have grown impatient.

“Every Iraqi who was watching this would realise that it had nothing to do with what was happening outside” the parliament, said Hazem Shammari, a political science professor at University of Baghdad. “We’re realising that the political powers from the left wing to the right wing are in one valley and the Iraqis are in another valley.”

A cartoon in the independent Addustour newspaper reflected the resentment toward an isolated political elite. It showed a citizen chasing after a politician and asking, “Why don’t they expand the Green Zone so people can live safely?”

Another cartoon, in the pan-Arab Asharq Al Awsat, depicted a life preserver as a symbol of the new Iraqi government. But the buoy was being delivered to drowning Iraq by a snail.

When the session began on Sunday, the entire set of parliament’s rules was to be read to the legislators.

But an hour into the reading, one lawmaker objected that the tradition of reading legislation came from old English practices. “And most of them were not very educated back then, so it had to be read to them,” he said. “But here, we have college degrees and even postgraduate degrees.”

A quick show of hands indicated that most in the room agreed and wanted to stop the laborious reading.

Taking the articles one by one wasn’t exactly a time saver, though. Rule No. 1 states that the parliament is Iraq’s highest legislative authority. But the assembly members found reason to discuss the simple statement for 30 minutes.

Some urged the group to move quickly, while others argued the rules would be the important framework for all future debates.

Sheikh Jalaluddin Saghir, the cleric who heads the giant Bratha Mosque in Baghdad, urged his fellow legislators to ‘discuss each word very carefully, word by word, because the next assembly will have to live with what we decide’.

After a break, the group agreed that the debate was not helping and decided to send recommended amendments for the bylaws to a committee.

“If there is a major discussion let’s have it, but let’s not discuss every little thought that pops into someone’s head,” said secular Hussein Shahristani, a nuclear scientist. “We have other major duties besides the bylaws, like the constitution and considering a government.”

The assembly’s business is viewed as urgent from the White House to the streets of Baghdad, where observers are hoping a new government can begin to stabilise security. For now, though, sectarian killings and attacks on foreign forces continue unabated.

At least two Iraqis died when a pair of suicide bombers drove into a parking lot near the Baghdad airport, where civilians and a convoy of Iraqi police had gathered.

At least 16 others were injured in the attack, at a spot where many travellers leave airport transportation and hop rides into the city. The US military initially reported that 14 had died in the area, also an entrance to the base where the Americans are headquartered.

Editor Zayer weighed the violence against the lethargic pace of political progress, five months after Iraqis voted for their representatives.

“Who will care for the orphans and widows?” he asked. “I was shocked and angry [watching the parliament]. We expect them to speed up and catch up with the times.”—Dawn/The Los Angeles Times News Service