National Coalition MP says his Coalition would get half of new cabinet seats

DIWANIYA / IraqiNews.com: A Legislator from the Iraqi National Coalition, representing the State of Law Alliance led by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, has said that his coalition would get half of the seats in the new Iraqi cabinet, according to its election rights, pointing out that Maliki had not been officially assigned to form the new cabinet yet. “The Iraqi National Coalition shall get half of the new seats in the new government, though Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had not officially been assigned to for the government yet, and when he would be assigned, he would complete the formation of the cabinet before the end of this year,” Abdul-Ilah Aal-Taher told IraqiNews.com news agency on Monday. Maliki is expected to carry out consultations nowadays with different political blocs to distribute the ministerial posts according to the “electoral rights.” Taher, meanwhile said that “the State of Law Coalition would get more than half of the cabinet seats, allocated for the National Coalition and the distribution of posts would be according to the election rights and the majority of the points, taking into consideration the academic specializations and the will of the winning blocs.” He said that his Coalition had formed a committee to distribute the cabinet seats according to the electoral right for the blocs that are member to his coalition, pointing out that the security posts, such as defense, interior and intelligence, would be allocated for independent elements, whilst the leading state posts, such as oil, finance and foreign affairs, would be distributed equally among the National Coalition, al-Iraqiya Alliance and the Kurdistan Coalition. The Iraqi Parliament had elected on 11/11/2010, and after about eight months of argument and discussions that followed Iraq’s March 7th nationwide elections, the candidate of al-Iraqiya Coalition, Usama al-Nujeifi as the Parliament’s Speaker, the leader in the Sadrist Trend, Qusay al-Suheil as his 1st Deputy and the Kurdistan Coalition‘s candidate, Aref Teifur, as his 2nd Deputy. The same Parliament’s session also re-elected President Jalal Talabani for a second Presidency term, whilst Talabani, on his part, assigned Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki for a second premiership session. Diwaniya city, the center of Qadisiya Province, is 180 km to the south of Baghdad. SKH/SR 154