New York Times, Court Decision Before Iraq Vote May Complicate Result, March 27, 2010
BAGHDAD — Ayad Allawi may have been the top vote-getter in Iraq’s election, but a little-noticed court decision may still make it possible for incumbent prime minister Nuri Kamal al Maliki to get first crack at forming a government.
Mr. Allawi won a plurality, 91 seats in the parliament to 89 for Mr. Maliki, in results announced Friday, and it was widely assumed that under Iraq’s constitution, as the head of the bloc with the most seats, he would be asked by the president to make the first attempt to form a government, and given 30 days to do so.
However, on Thursday, the day before the vote results were announced, the prime minister’s office quietly went to the Supreme Federal Court, Iraq’s highest court, and asked for an interpretation of Article 76, which the court issued speedily — and in Maliki’s favor. The court ruled that the president would choose not the leader of the voting bloc with the highest number of seats when the results are ratified, but the leader with the most seats after the new parliament is seated
The United Nations is not seeing widespread fraud that could affect the outcome of the Iraq election, but it is still waiting for details of hundreds of complaints launched by political parties, according to senior UN officials.
In his first interview since Iraq’s historic elections on Sunday, the top UN envoy to Iraq, Ad Melkert, told The Christian Science Monitor it was important to distinguish between individual issues by politicians and “issues of a structural nature that may impact the outcome of the elections.”
“So far there is no indication that there is something of the latter kind,” said Mr. Melkert, a former Dutch politician who is the special representative of the secretary-general.
New York Times, As Iraq Tallies Vote, U.S. Says Pullout Plans Are ‘on Track’, March 8, 2010
BAGHDAD — As Iraq tallied the votes from Sunday’s nationwide elections to choose a new Parliament, the top American military commander in Iraq on Monday praised the Iraqi military’s performance during the vote and said the United States would proceed with plans to withdraw troops from the country.
Politico, Iraqis vote in second national election, March 7, 2010
As Iraq held its second nationwide parliamentary elections since the 2003 U.S. invasion, U.S. officials said they were expecting the government formation period following the vote to be a tense and hotly contested one.
Washington Post, After Iraq's election, the real fight, March 7, 2010
I still remember shuttling all night between my office at the National Security Council and the State Department's Election Watch Task Force. It was Jan. 30, 2005, Iraq was holding its first meaningful elections in decades, and I was supposed to brief President George W. Bush in a few hours. When morning came, I made my way to the library in his residence and described to the president how our early anxieties in watching then-Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar cast his ballot in an eerily empty Baghdad polling booth had transformed into exhilaration as more and more Iraqis poured onto the streets and into the voting stations.
Washington Post, D.C. area Iraqis slow to vote in homeland's elections, March 5, 2010
Iraqis living in the Washington area are starting to trickle in to a polling center the Iraqi government has set up for them at the Hilton Arlington hotel in Ballston so that they can vote in their nation's second parliamentary elections since the ouster of President Saddam Hussein.
Reuters, Iraq Kurds again likely to be kingmakers post-poll. February 28, 2010
Brutally suppressed under dictator Saddam Hussein, Kurds became one of the nation's most cohesive political forces after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, strengthened by U.S. support and by having made their own peace after a civil war during the 1990s. Yet none of Iraq's major Shi'ite or Sunni Arab parties is expected to win enough parliamentary seats on March 7 to be able to form a government on its own, making Kurdish support possibly the key for any coalition wanting to take power. "No one can be a prime minister without the backing of the Kurds, because it will be either the Sunni Arabs or the Shi'ite Arabs, and they don't support each other, so we will be the critical factor in this balance," said Shoresh Haji of the Kurdish opposition party Change.
New York Times, Iraqi Elections – The View from Kurdistan by Sam Dagher. February 10, 2010
A senior Kurdish leader here told me recently that anyone who aspired to become the next prime minister of Iraq needed the blessing of the Kurds. He said it was a “simple fact.”….The Kurdish region continues to solidify its position as a haven of security and prosperity compared with the rest of Iraq. Oil companies and foreign investors are pouring into the region hoping to use it as a launch pad for expansion into the rest of Iraq when the right moment comes.
UPI, Kurdish Lawmaker Hails Role of Women. February 10, 2010
Female lawmakers in the Kurdish government of Iraq describe improving conditions for women, saying they are on equal terms with their male counterparts. At 27, Befrin Hussein Khalifa is the youngest woman to serve in the Kurdish Parliament. In an interview with London 's pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, she describes a vibrant political situation for women. She said cooperative efforts between members of Parliament and the regional government in Erbil would open the doors to a competitive democracy.
