By Xinhua
Baghdad : The Iraqi government led by the Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is conducting a swirl of political efforts to bring the breakaway parties back to the government, which has been running at its half capacity for nearly six months.
Iraq’s presidential council, comprised of its president and two vice presidents, have given Maliki two options: persuading its opponents to rejoin the cabinet or reshuffling the current portfolios to form a new one.
Maliki has talked with representatives of the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), the largest Sunni bloc, which dropped out of the cabinet in last August.
For a country left in shambles by incessant sectarian confrontation and terrorist killings and sabotages, a unified and effective governance is a must for reconstruction. The 40-member government, however, has not been functioning at its full capability since the withdrawal last year of 17 cabinet members respectively belonging to the IAF, the Sadr bloc of Shiiteas well as the secular National Iraqi List party led by former interim government prime minister Ayad Allawi.
National reconciliation is one of the main political benchmark set by the U.S. administration to Maliki, so that Washington would be able to pull out its troops in large numbers.
As Iraqi security is improving, the U.S. has ratcheted up its pressure for fear that a lack of political breakthrough would scuttle the security gains.
Since last week, there has been consultations and optimistic statements that the sectarian balance would come back to Maliki’s fragile cabinet.
“Today there is a chance for reconciliation and national dialogue, especially there is a new atmosphere. Iraq would only be built on common trust,” said the Sunni Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi during his meeting with politicians from the National Iraqi List.
“All of us (the political factions) admit that there is a need for a new start of the political process which has been out of balance,” said Hashimi.
Hashimi’s Islamic Party, a component of the IAF, has held meetings with various Iraqi political factions to bring the country’s stalled national unity government back on track.The IAF formed a task force to negotiate with the government and the bloc seems to be willing to make a compromise over its conditions to end boycott.
The IAF asks for release of detainees without being charged with specific crimes, the disbanding of militias, mainly Shiite,and the involvement of all parties in dealing with security in Iraq.
The parliament has passed a key law which would enable a large amount of former members of Saddam Hussein’s party to return to public life. And the government has also worked out an amnesty bill for pardoning detainees cleared of wrongdoing. “Our negotiations with the government has submitted only thetop priority conditions, i.e. not all of our conditions, and weare waiting for an answer from the government, so we can take a decision over the return of our ministers to the cabinet,”Izzeldin al-Dawlah, an IAF lawmaker, said.
For his part, Hadier al-Ibadi of the Shiite’s United Iraqi Alliance said Maliki “will make a mega shake-out for his cabinet to form a smaller one that will include only 20 ministries.””There are two options for Maliki, either replacing the withdrawing ministers with new ones, or making a drastic shake-out for all the ministries including shrinking the number of his ministries to 20 from 37,” Ibadi said.
However, Abbas al-Baiyati, a Shiite MP, found it difficult for Maliki to make such a major shake-out.
“Forming or abolishing ministries need two essential measures, firstly, there should be a consensus among the leaders of the parliament blocs and secondly it needs a new law to be passed bythe parliament, according to the constitution,” al-Baiyati said.
“These are only talks among politicians here and there. It is hard be achieved,” said Ali al-Adeeb, a leading figure from the Maliki’s Dawa Party, referring to what politicians say about amajor shake-out by Maliki that would yield a smaller cabinet.
“Yes, there is a need for shrinking the number of ministries especially those who have identical duties, and I know that Malikiis working on that, but it is difficult to be achieved within a short period of time because some political parties will cling to their portion of ministerial seats and it is hard to convince them,” Adeeb said.
Izzat al-Shabander, a lawmaker from the National Iraqi List, said that the latest political buzzing is referring to that politicians are “living up to their responsibilities and realize that what happened to Iraq is there responsibility, so that we cana comprehensive reform to Iraqi political process.” “Admitting the failure is a step toward success. They (politicians) should be serious in reforming the political process,” Shabander said.