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Iraq: Allawi Begins Choosing New Cabinet Ministers | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Baghdad, Asharq Al-Awsat – The Iraqiya List led by the former head of the Iraqi interim government, Dr. Iyad Allawi, has begun to form the next government “based on its constitutional right as the list that won the legislative elections (91 seats),” confirmed a source from the Iraqiya List.

The source told Asharq Al-Awsat in Baghdad on Wednesday that “the [Iraqiya] List is determined to uphold its constitutional right to form the next government with Allawi as its candidate to head the government.”

The source indicated that “the leadership of the [Iraqiya] List has begun its internal meetings as well as official dialogue with the rest of the winning coalitions in the elections to select the names of the members of the next government so that it takes less time to announce the names of the new ministers once the head of the list has been charged with forming the next government by the President of the Republic in accordance with the text of the Iraqi constitution.”

The source, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity, said, “The next government will be a national partnership government so for this reason Iraqiya is keen to select new ministers on the basis of professional competence and in accordance with the dialogue that took place and is still taking place between the Iraqiya List and other blocs, particularly the National Iraqi Alliance headed by Ammar al Hakim, the head of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, and the Kurdistan Alliance that includes the two main Kurdish parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan headed by the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and the Kurdistan Democratic Party headed by Massoud Barzani, President of the Kurdistan Region.”

The source added that “among those included in the next government are ministers from the State of Law coalition that is headed by Nuri al Maliki, the head of the outgoing government. Those ministers got in touch [with the Iraqiya List] and expressed their willingness to join the new government regardless of whether or not their [State of Law] list will join the next government.”

The source stressed that the “Iraqiya List is continuing to hold serious and formal talks with the rest of the lists including the State of Law coalition and that it will not exclude any person from taking part in the next government, and that it [the Iraqiya List] is informing them of the latest developments in the formation of the new government.” The source also mentioned that President Jalal Talabani had confirmed that he will charge Allawi with forming the next government “being the head of the winning list with the biggest number [of votes] yet.”

The official source from the Iraqiya List revealed that “Rafi al Issawi, a leader in the Iraqiya List, has archive video recordings of the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution, during which Humam Hammoudi, the Chairman of the Iraqi Constitution Drafting Committee and Sami al Askari, a member of the committee, insisted that the interpretation of Article 76 of the Constitution is that the bloc that wins the largest number of seats is the one that forms the government and not the [largest] post-electoral allied bloc as the Kurdistan bloc was claiming at the time.”