Nouri al-Maliki government approved by

Nouri al-Maliki government approved by Iraqi parliament

(Xinhua) — The Iraqi parliament Tuesday approved Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his new government, more than nine months after an inconclusive parliamentary election.

The approval ended the political limbo in the country after political factions achieved power-sharing consensus in November but later argued over the cabinet posts. However, local analysts said this new government is still fragile, and it is still too early to see how the situation will develop.

In the parliament, Maliki has vowed to establish a strong government to fight against terrorism, resolve the sectarian differences in the country, and fix relations with its skeptical Arab neighbors.
Maliki’s list for cabinet posts includes current Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani as deputy prime minister for energy, with Deputy Oil Minister Abdul Kareem Luaibi, who was a senior assistant of Shahristani, moving up to oil minister.

This lineup is interpreted as an assurance of the validity of the signed agreements in the last administration, which would encourage more foreign investments in the country’s energy field.
During Shahristani’s term, Iraq signed some major developing contracts with international energy giants which could boost Iraq’s output capacity to 12 million barrels per day.
The forming of the new government was immediately applauded. In an interview with Xinhua, Ibrahim al-Ameri, a professor at Baghdad University, said he believed the new government would do better than the former one, “because all the Iraqi factions have been represented in this government, which decreased the fears of marginalization that some factions complained of in the past,” he said.
“However, this new government is handcuffed by the power-sharing deal that forced Maliki to make concessions to the Kurds and to the Sunni-backed Ayad Allawi bloc. It was the only way for Maliki to guarantee his staying in office for another term,” he said.
“As for security, I think things will be better in general, but violence will never end in the foreseeable future, because it is hard to deal with militants melting into society and keeping low-profile. Such challenges will last until the government fully controls the situation,” he said.

Posted by musicking on Dec 22 2010. Filed under Breaking News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry