As is well-known, al-Maliki’s call comes after his cabinet was inflicted several major blows, causing a state of paralysis in the government; with 17 of its ministers – belonging to three major parties – deciding to resign or boycott the government sessions.
The planned summit – which came as no surprise, since the idea of a broad political conference has been floated for weeks – seeks to prepare the ground for a political solution that would return the IAF (the main Sunni constituent of the cabinet) and perhaps the Sadrist Current and Iyad 'Allawi’s bloc to the fold, in exchange for certain political and constitutional concessions on the part of the four dominant parties in the parliament: Maliki’s Da'wa party, al-Hakeem’s SIIC, Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party.
However, Maliki’s call for a conciliatory summit comes in the midst of a host of initiatives, on the part of the government and the opposition, which are not all conciliatory in nature.
According to al-Sharq al-Awsat, Da'wa party leaders are threatening (in tandem with Maliki’s initiative) to form a “majority government” in case the parties of the opposition refuse to cooperate and rejoin the “national unity government.”
The paper quoted Waleed al-Hilli, who said on al-'Iraqiya channel (funded by the government and supportive of Maliki), that “the withdrawal of the Iraqi List ('Allawi’s bloc) and the IAF ... will force the government to form a cabinet of parliamentary majority.” In other terms, a cabinet controlled by the aforementioned four parties, and excluding the opposition. Hilli is reminding Maliki’s opponents of the fact that, while the detractors of the current government may be numerous, they do not form a cohesive coalition capable of toppling the cabinet, while the four major parties can rely on a slim –but guaranteed – majority in the Iraqi parliament.
The threat to form a government made-up of the four pro-Maliki parties had been advertised under the term “the coalition of the moderates,” Talabani and Maliki had announced, several times, that such a mega-bloc could be formed “soon” to take up the helm of governance in Iraq.
In case Maliki gives up on luring the Sunni IAF back into the cabinet, he would have to find Sunni candidates for the ministerial positions outside the parliament. Hilli said that “independent” personalities could be sought to fill the empty seats.
In that context, Az-Zaman reported that Maliki will be holding meetings with Sunni tribal leaders from the Dulaim clan to discuss the recruiting of Sunni personalities from the pro-government tribal alliances in Anbar in order to join the cabinet, replacing the resigning IAF ministers.
Another possible solution to the political crisis was proposed by politicians close to the IAF, it consists of creating an “executive council” made of several politicians, representing the main sects and ethnicities in Iraq, in order to lead the government, in an attempt to minimize the powers of the Prime Minister. Az-Zaman was clearly arguing for the latter proposal. In today’s edition, the newspaper claimed that in the coming summit of Iraqi blocs, “Iraqi leaderships will place ... Nuri al-Maliki in front of two choices ... accepting (the creation of) a leadership made up of four personalities ... or resigning.” The plan, according to Az-Zaman, involves a council made up of Maliki, the President Talabani, and the two vice-presidents (Hashimi and 'Abd al-Mahdi.) The proposal, the paper added, seeks to “evade the problems caused by the monopolization of power by Maliki and his advisers for over a year.”
Anti-Maliki Az-Zaman found another reason to snipe at the Prime Minister: the paper claimed (on the front page) that al-Maliki displayed his ignorance, in a Tehran press conference, of the date in which the Iraq-Iran war ended. The paper added that the Prime Minister arrived in Tehran during the anniversary of the ending of the war, which is celebrated in Iran as a “day of victory against Iraq,” said Az-Zaman.
