Sadrsits support VP Hashemi, say quota system unconstitutional

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: The Sadrist bloc of Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr on Sunday expressed support for Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi’s Saturday calls to re-form the government on a basis of citizenship away from the partisan quota system. “The calls to re-form the government away from the quota system in all its forms are logical, but there would be a problem on application now that political blocs are still demanding quotas in ministries and other institutions,” a spokesman for the bloc, Ahmed al-Massoudi, told IraqiNews.com in a second reaction by a political bloc to Hashemi’s statements. “The Iraqi constitution has not provide for setting up a government on the basis of a quota system but the dominating political blocs have imposed this reality,” Massoudi said, adding “forming the government on sectarian, nationalist or partisan bases runs counter to the constitution”. Hashemi, who is also the leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), one of key components of the Sunni Iraqi Accord Front (IAF), which has 38 out of a total 275 seats in parliament, had called during a conference held in Baghdad on Saturday for re-forming the government on the basis of citizenship after the quota system has proved a “failure”. Massoudi, whose bloc has 29 seats in parliament, said Sayyed Muqtada al-Sadr and the Sadrist bloc had called for installing a professional national government when they gave up six of its cabinet portfolios and made way for the prime minister to choose independent substitutes. He expressed regret that the “substitutes were chosen from the (Shiite) United Iraqi Alliance”. Lawmaker Mahmoud Othman of the Kurdistan Alliance (KA), the second largest bloc with 53 seats, had told IraqiNews.com on Sunday that Vice President Hashemi should have waited for the implementation of the reform proposal tabled by the IAF and endorsed by the parliament before launching any new initiatives. AmR (S) 1