Iraqi speaker suspends parliament sessions indefinitely

Iraqi parliament speaker Salim al-Jubouri on Tuesday suspended the parliament sessions until further notice after disagreement erupted during a session to vote on the fate of the parliament speaker.

The move came when lawmakers convened in a session to discuss whether to sack the speaker and his two deputies before voting on a new parliament leader.

However, minutes later a disagreement erupted prompting the Sunni and Kurdish parliamentary blocs and some of Shiite blocs to walk out of the session. Then Adnan al-Janabi, the interim speaker, adjourned the meeting session until next Thursday and called for lawmakers to nominate a new speaker.

On Thursday, the parliament held an emergency session by dozens of dissenting lawmakers and sacked the speaker al-Jubouri, after the dissenting group chose the eldest lawmaker al-Janabi as an interim speaker.

The decision was rejected by the other camp of lawmakers, who argued that the session was unconstitutional because the lack of needed quorum.

On Saturday, the dissenting lawmakers again held a session chaired by al-Janabi and decided to postpone the session at the request of Badr parliamentary bloc, a Shiite, in order to hold further talks to end the split.

Earlier, disagreement heated up between the parliament presidency panel and the lawmakers who were on sit-in protest inside the parliament. The sit-in lawmakers criticized Jubouri for the repeated delay of proposed vote new cabinet candidates as part of reforms suggested by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Legislators from various parties were demanding an end to the quota system, created following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to which Iraq's resources and control would be divided among the political parties representing Iraq's ethnic and sectarian factions.

In the past few weeks, powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and thousands of his followers gathered in downtown Baghdad, demanding Abadi to come up with substantial reforms, including a government reshuffle, better services and an end to corruption.

The reforms also need to address the country's economic crisis due to the sharp drop in global oil prices whilst security forces are fighting the Islamic State militants in the north and west of Iraq.

Source: XINHUA