ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Kurdish lawmakers in the Iraqi parliament said Monday they are ready to back the next government in Baghdad, but only if Kurds receive their “fair share of seats” in Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi’s next cabinet. Kurdish lawmaker Hoshiar Abdulla told Rudaw the bloc is eyeing one fourth of the total posts in the next cabinet, which Abadi has promised will be a “technocratic government.” “We have agreed that the Kurdish share should not be less than 20 percent of the cabinet seats and we will endorse the government only if it is not at the expense of our legitimate share in governance,” Abdulla said, after he and his fellow lawmakers from the Kurdistan Alliance met with Iraqi President Fuad Masoum – who is a Kurd -- in Baghdad for consultative talks last week. Abadi announced earlier this month his plans to form a new government, which he said will be broad based and inclusive, but would rely on technocratic ministers rather than politicians from Iraq’s fragmented political spectrum. The announcement, which has evoked different reactions, came amid a deterioration of the financial crisis as the country has increasingly used its reserve cash to cope with the turmoil. Iraq’s budget in 2015 shrank to $105 billion from $118 billion in 2013 as global prices of crude oil dropped to a record law. The 2015 budget was based on $56 a barrel of crude, but since the price has been hovering far below, Baghdad has used its international reserve cash to offset the widening deficit. Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who is seen as one the main supporters of Abadi’s reform plans, has said he will withdraw his support if reforms do not produce results. “There should be a technocratic government far away from partisanship that serves all the components of the Iraqi people,” Sadr said in a televised address on February 13. His Ahrar block holds 34 of the 328 seats in the Iraqi parliament, while the Kurdish block has 63. Critics say Abadi has no detailed plan on how to form the new cabinet without the support of the political parties. “How can you ask political parties to endorse your government when you choose your cabinet members outside their list,” the Minister of Migration, Darbaz Muhammad, told Rudaw. “And if that really takes place, I think ministers will spend half of their time in parliament trying to defend their actions before an assembly that would try its best to oust the ministers and create political vacuum,” Muhammad said. Following ISIS’ rapid advance in mid 2014, a fragile deal was brokered in Baghdad, which led to the formation of a new cabinet by Abadi, who vowed to run an inclusive government. As the ISIS war raged and oil prices plummeted, the new prime minister announced a series of reforms to offset the growing budget deficit, including removal of a number of government positions. The Kurdish bloc had five ministerial posts in the new cabinet but lost two of them as Abadi removed the positions, along with many other posts which were occupied by Iraq’s other political parties. The government consists of 22 ministerial positions with three of them held by Kurds. “We have no knowledge now how the coming cabinet will look, but as it seems we will be assigned with four ministries,” Kurdish lawmaker Abdulla said.
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