An election law cannot be passed without al-Sadr's approval: lawmaker
Shafaq News/ The Sadrist movement's approval is a critical prerequisite for passing any new election law, a member of the parliament's legal committee said on Saturday.
"The election law is political in the core. It cannot be passed in the parliament unless there is a consensus between all the political forces in the country; this indeed includes the Sadrist movement," committee member Omed Mohammed told Shafaq News Agency.
"Undoubtedly, the objection of the Sadrist movement will have a significant impact on the legislative process pertaining to the enactment of the new election law, which aims to revert to the Sainte-Laguë system," he said, "this is particularly the case in light of the independent parliamentarians and emerging political blocs' opposition, rendering its passage without a political consensus a formidable task."
"The prospects of successfully passing the election law in the parliament without the support of all influential and emerging political factions, including the Sadrist movement, seems remote," he added.
Yesterday, the leading figure in the Sadrist movement, Hakem al-Zameli, shared a Facebook footage featuring a representative of the supreme Shiite authority in Iraq, Abdul-Mahdi al-Karbalai, voicing rejection for "closed lists" and "single electoral districts.
"The religious authority's opinion is no for closed lists, no for the single constituency," the Shiite cleric said in the clip, "the closed list system denies the voters the ability to choose their representative in the parliament."
The member of the resigned Sadrist bloc, Haider al-Mansouri, said, "do you expect the losing parties of the elite to enact an election law that allows the citizens to hold them accountable via ballot boxes?"
"Will they give the genuinely Independent lawmakers the opportunity to challenge the militias again? Or they will beg for alliances from the young blocs that will never trust them again after being deceived in spite of the support they offered to the blocking one-third," he added.
"The alignment of the Sainte-laguë parties was justified by al-Sadr's presence. Now, with al-Sadr no longer in the scene, what will they do?" he concluded.
