PM says won’t run for third term

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said on Saturday that he decided not to run for a third term in office, according to a semi-official news channel. “I will not run for a third term and I go for the notion of no more than two terms in office constitutionally,” Maliki was quoted by al-Iraqiya as saying Saturday. The prime minister has been assigned to form the first elected Iraqi government in May 2006 during a period of sectarian violence described as the toughest since the downfall of the former Iraqi regime in 2003. In the March 2010 elections, the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC) announced that Maliki’s Dawlat al-Qanoon (State of Law) bloc garnered 89 seats, coming second to former Premier Iyad Allawi’s al-Iraqiya bloc, which won 91 seats, after eight months of constant haggling over the vote counting mechanism. Eventually, Maliki was selected as the candidate from prime minister by the National Alliance coalition that encompassed the State of Law and Iraqi National Alliance (INA) blocs, forming the largest parliamentary bloc and helping him to win a second term in office on November 25, 2010, after all blocs met half way and settled their differences upon an initiative by Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Massoud Barzani. AmR (TP)/SR 2214