With Muqtada al-Sadr’s 40-days window for “the obstructing third” to form a government without him coming to a close next week, a delegation from the Iran-backed Shiite parliamentary faction known as the Coordination Framework is expected to visit Erbil in the next few days and meet with Masoud Barzani, leader of the KDP, in hopes of reaching an understanding with the Iraqi parliament’s largest Kurdish bloc and make progress in the government formation process.
The Coordination Framework and their allies insist on a new government being set up based on political consensus; an idea which has been repeatedly opposed by the Save the Homeland Alliance, consisting of the Sadrist bloc, the Sunni Sovereignty Alliance, and the KDP, who are attempting to form a national majority government.
“Conversations with the Sadrist movement have begun … away from the eyes of the media, we [Coordination Framework] have told them that a government will not be formed without Sadr,” said Ahmed al-Issawi, parliament member of the National Wisdom Movement led by Shiite cleric Ammar al-Hakim.
“As for our visit to the Kurdistan Region, we have previously sent a message through Fuad Hussein [Iraqi foreign minister], and there’s communication between us. I believe we will have visits to the KDP and Masoud Barzani within the next few days to reach an understanding and a result,” he added.
As part of an 18-points initiative, the Coordination Framework on Wednesday asked the Kurdish political parties to agree on a candidate for the post of Iraq's president, with the KDP and the Coordination Framework-aligned Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) supporting different presidential candidates, while also calling on the independent MPs to present candidates for the prime minister position.
A week before the end of the 40-days opportunity, Sadr declared on Wednesday that the Coordination Framework have “failed” to form a government in the period they were provided, and called on the legislature's 43 independent members, to form a government without Sadrist ministers "within a maximum period of 15 days".
Almost seven months since Iraq’s October 10 election, none of the political parties has been able to form a new government.
The Iraqi parliament was scheduled to elect a new president in March but failed to do so on three different occasions, with the last session being adjourned indefinitely.
