Iraq PM to name cabinet Monday: aide

BAGHDAD (Al Arabiya, Agencies)

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will present his cabinet to parliament for approval on Monday, Al Arabiya TV reported on Saturday, potentially bringing an end to nine months of political deadlock after indecisive March elections. The announcement came as parliament voted to overturn controversial bans placed earlier this year on three members of a Sunni-backed political bloc for their alleged ties to ex-dictator Saddam Hussein’s Baath party.

	Mr Maliki has officially asked to present his cabinet to parliament on Monday
PM Maliki\’s aid

“Mr Maliki has officially asked to present his cabinet to parliament on Monday,” an aid to Malki said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Senior officials in Maliki’s coalition said Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani will keep his job in the new government.

“The minister of oil will stay in his place as the minister of oil,” said Abdul-Hadi al-Hasani, an official with Maliki’s Dawa party and former deputy leader of parliament’s oil and gas committee.

A source close to Shahristani confirmed that the minister, the architect of major energy deals that could push Iraq to the top ranks of global oil powers, would remain in office rather than taking a post as deputy prime minister in charge of energy affairs.

Maliki’s State of Law coalition won 89 seats in Iraq’s March 7 elections, two fewer than the Iraqiya bloc of ex-premier Iyad Allawi. However, neither won enough for a parliamentary majority, triggering an impasse that is only now being resolved.

A power-sharing deal last month finally broke the deadlock, with Maliki being named Prime Minister-designate on November 25 and given 30 days to name his government.

As a condition for agreeing to the deal, Allawi demanded that pre-election bans on several of his bloc’s members for alleged ties to Saddam’s regime be overturned, and a new statutory body be created to oversee security matters with him at the helm.

As a result, three members of Iraqiya had their bans overturned in parliament on Saturday by a vote of 109-61. Iraq’s Council of Representatives has 325 seats, with quorum requiring 163 lawmakers.

A ban on a fourth politician had been expected to be lifted, but the body that made the original call to bar him, the Justice and Accountability Commission (JAC), failed to send a required letter to parliament asking that his name be cleared.

It was not immediately clear why the letter was not delivered.

Two of those whose bans were lifted and the politician who remains barred were all MPs in the previous parliament, but will not sit in the present one. The overturning of the bans allows them to resume participation in politics.

The bans generated widespread controversy as they were perceived as disproportionately targeting Sunni Arabs, and the two heads of the JAC were themselves running for parliament on a rival pan-Shiite list.

A statement issued on behalf of the three politicians who had their bans overturned, and read aloud in parliament, said they condemned “the Baath party and the practices of the Baath party.”

“We condemn all the icons and the leaders of the former regime who carried out mass killings. We promise not to speak in favour of the Baath party and we announce our belief in the political process and the peaceful transfer of power,” the statement said.