Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Tuesday the withdrawal of ministers loyal to Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has not weakened his government and he will name technocrats to replace them soon.
In the biggest Cabinet shake-up since al-Maliki took office a year ago, six Sadrist ministers pulled out of the government on Monday in protest against his refusal to set a timetable for a United States troop withdrawal, a demand of the anti-American cleric.
”The withdrawal does not mean the government is witnessing weakness,” al-Maliki told reporters after a regular Cabinet session in his first public remarks on the walkout.
Al-Maliki said the appointment of technocrats will help the government ”escape from [sectarian] quotas and also help in choosing ministers who are professionals and politicians”. His administration is dominated by sectarian parties drawn from the country’s Shi’ite, Sunni Arab and Kurdish groups.
Iraqis have long complained that the sectarian make-up of the national unity government has hindered al-Maliki, forcing him to tread carefully to keep his various constituencies happy, and turned ministries into personal fiefdoms of political blocs.
Analysts had said they did not expect the walkout to affect the day-to-day performance of al-Maliki’s government since the ministers did not hold any key portfolios, but it could increase pressure on him to draw up a troop-withdrawal timetable, a demand of many Iraqis four years after the US-led invasion.
The Sadrists, who form the single biggest parliamentary bloc in the ruling Shi’ite Alliance, called on al-Maliki to appoint non-partisan independents, a move the prime minister welcomed.
”In the near future, the names of the ministers will be announced … from the independents, technocrats and those who believe in a new Iraq,” al-Maliki said.
Speaking to reporters in the Jordanian capital, Amman, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates suggested al-Maliki may now be able to bring in replacements who could improve relations between Iraq’s deeply divided communities.
”The impact that … these resignations have will depend in some measure on who is selected to replace these ministers and their capabilities and whether those vacancies are used in a way that perhaps can further advance the reconciliation process.”
Washington constantly presses Iraq’s leaders to speed up reconciliation between majority Shi’ites and minority Sunni Arabs who were dominant under Saddam Hussein and form the backbone of the insurgency against US troops and al-Maliki’s government.
Senior Shi’ite lawmaker Haider al-Ibadi said earlier that al-Maliki would present the candidates for the posts, which include the health and transport ministries, to Parliament by next week.
Analysts are divided on the implications of al-Sadr’s pull-out from the government, but agree the biggest concern is whether al-Sadr, by distancing himself from the government, will feel less constrained to rein in his feared Mehdi Army militia.
The Mehdi Army has largely kept a low profile during a major US-Iraqi crackdown in the capital, but there are fears it may take to the streets again to retaliate against a recent surge in bombings blamed on Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda.
Al-Maliki reiterated on Monday that US troops will leave Iraq only when Iraqi forces are ready to take over security. British forces in southern Iraq will hand over the fourth of Iraq’s 18 provinces to Iraqi security forces on Wednesday. Maysan has been largely spared from Iraq’s sectarian violence.
In Geneva, the United Nations refugee agency on Tuesday appealed for international aid for nearly four million Iraqis driven from their homes by the violence, and for those sheltering them inside and outside Iraq.
Although the gathering is not a donor conference, UN officials hope it will put pressure on Western states to provide more financial help and take more Iraqi asylum-seekers. — Reuters
Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim