Iraq’s parliament ended four months of legislative paralysis on Sunday by electing a new speaker who supporters hope will bring both muscle and discipline to the notoriously disorderly body.
Ayad al-Samarraie, a leading figure in the Iraqi Islamic Party, was chosen to replace Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, who resigned as speaker in December amid complaints about his erratic and abrasive style.
Al-Samarraie, a mild-mannered Sunni engineer who spent nearly a decade in exile in Britain, is likely to bring a more sober approach to running the legislature. But his selection could also lead to power struggles between parliament and the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Under an unwritten agreement between the factions, the speaker’s post is filled by a Sunni.
For four months, al-Samarraie has been unable to get the needed majority in the 275-seat parliament because of concerns among some, including al-Maliki, that the Iraqi Islamic Party would use the position to challenge the prime minister’s power.
Amid widespread speculation that the Sunni party was preparing a no-confidence vote to remove al-Maliki, in collaboration with its allies among the Kurds and the Shiite Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, al-Maliki had successfully blocked al-Samarraie’s election for months.
Legislators said the impasse was broken after al-Maliki received reassurances that the Iraqi Islamic Party would not seek to challenge his rule. Al-Samarraie won with 153 votes of the 232 ballots cast.
Addressing journalists after the vote, al-Samarraie, 63, pledged to strengthen parliament’s oversight of government activities. But he also said the legislature “should in no way be subjected to political motives, or used to make gains by any political bloc.”
Salim Abdullah Jabouri, a spokesman for the Iraqi Accordance Front, which includes the Iraqi Islamic Party, said that with nationwide elections due at the end of the year, there is not enough time to organize a no-confidence vote. “Parliament will check the government, not topple the government, because lately the parliament had become a tool in the hands of the government,” he said.
The election of al-Samarraie was nonetheless a setback for al-Maliki, said Izzat Shahbandar, a legislator with a secular group.
“This is a strong challenge to the prime minister because he didn’t want this party to take the office,” he said. “It shows that the prime minister derives his power from the people, not from parliament.” The deadlock had delayed the passage of many key pieces of legislation, including the much-anticipated oil-revenue law.
