Ex-Iraq PM backs out of chairing key body

First Published: 2011-03-02

Allawi attributes his decision not to chair National Council on Strategic Policies to lack of implementation of national partnership agreement.

Middle East Online

Allawi BAGHDAD - Iyad Allawi, leader of the bloc that won the most seats in Iraq's 2010 elections, said on Wednesday that he will not chair a supervisory body that he was to have headed as part of a power-sharing deal. The National Council on Strategic Policies was to be created as a sop to Allawi when rival Nuri al-Maliki was nominated to a second term as prime minister in November, and was intended to constrain Maliki's powers by providing a body for other politicians to make decisions on major issues. It has yet to be established, though, as a law required to bring it into existence has not been passed. "I will not participate in the national council," the former premier said in an interview with the Al-Rasheed satellite television channel to be broadcast later on Wednesday. Key quotes were provided beforehand to AFP. "This is a final decision, and Iraqiya can choose another person instead of me," he said, referring to his Iraqiya bloc which won 91 seats in the 325-member parliament, two more than Maliki's State of Law coalition. Allawi attributed his decision to "the lack of implementation of the national partnership agreement." The narrow margin after the March 2010 election led to months of political deadlock before a power-sharing agreement was finally agreed in November, with a government named the following month with Maliki at its head

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