National parliamentary elections will be held on Jan. 30, Iraqi officials announced on Monday, sliding the date into next year in a move that could complicate the US timetable for drawing down its forces.
The new parliament will choose a prime minister and Cabinet, a process that could take months. A long and turbulent delay in setting up a new government could force US President Barack Obama to revise his goal of removing most US troops from Iraq by the end of August next year.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki will be hoping to build on his success in last January’s provincial balloting to form a strong government capable of dealing with the security and economic challenges facing this country as the US role fades.
But a recent spate of deadly bombings in Baghdad has tarnished his image and the threat of more violence could rise as US forces redeploy outside of urban areas by June 30 as scheduled.
The election for the 275-member parliament had been expected in December, four years after the current assembly was chosen.
Deputy Iraqi parliament speaker Khalid al-Attiyah said the Federal Court ruled that the current mandate lasts until March next year and selected a date 45 days before the expiration.
Some Iraqi politicians had suggested delaying the election for up to a year, giving the prime minister’s Shiite and Sunni rivals more time to prepare. Al-Maliki opposed a lengthy delay.
Timing of the election is critical to Obama’s plan to end the US’ combat role in Iraq next year and withdraw most of the 135,000 US troops by September next year.
Iraq’s political parties are deeply fragmented. An inconclusive election outcome, with no party winning a commanding number of seats, could lead to protracted negotiations where the makeup of the new government remains unclear.
In other developments on Monday, Iraqi television aired partial footage of the interrogation of a man it says is Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the al-Qaeda front group, the Islamic State of Iraq. The government says it arrested al-Baghdadi on April 23.
A speaker who identified himself as al-Baghdadi denied the arrest in an audio message posted last week on a militant Web site.
Past Iraqi claims to have captured or killed al-Baghdadi turned out to be wrong.
Meanwhile, Iraqi government security forces arrested two prominent Sunni leaders in Diyala Province on Monday, according to local security officials, leading to renewed concerns that sectarian tensions in the area could once again erupt into greater violence.
One of those arrested, Sheik Riyadh al-Mujami, is a prominent figure in the local Awakening Council. The other, Abdul Jabbar al-Khazraji, is the head of the leading Sunni bloc of politicians on the Diyala Provincial Council.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the