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Iraq: Iyad Allawi hands 14 demands to form government

August 25, 2014 at 10:26 am

The Iraqi National Movement (INM), led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi (a Shiite secularist politician) handed prime minister-designate Haidar Abadi a paper comprising 14 demands related to the formation of the next government.

The spokesperson for the INM (also known as Al-Wataniya coalition and Al-Iraqiya coalition) told Anadolu Agency that the coalition’s negotiating delegation handed Abadi a document which includes a roadmap for the forthcoming.

“Al-Abadi expressed his support for the demands and stressed that he will work toward achieving them,” said Intisar Allawi, the coalition’s spokesperson.

The 14 demands including the independence of the judiciary; legislating a law for the federal government; choosing judges known for their integrity; competence and non-sectarian tendencies to join the High Judiciary Council; the Federal Court and appeal courts; and a speedy approval of the justice law which entails the release of those arrested and detained for malicious motives and those who were not tried in front of judges. Other demands were the return of properties and mosques that originally belong to the Sunni Endowment Diwan, as well as the properties and real estate that were seized from individual owners; and empowering governors with full authorities to conduct the affairs of their governorates.

The demands, according to Intisar Allawi, also include the improvement of public services starting with the implementation of a transportation strategy in the governorates of Nineveh, Salah Al-Din, Anbar and Dyala; working on a compulsory enlistment legislation to confront sectarian segregation in the armed forces; appointing the first deputy of the prime minister as a deputy for the general commander of local forces; and the redistribution of positions at the Interior Ministry, the National Security Ministry and the Intelligence to combat sectarian discrimination within those government bodies.

The paper also calls for pursuing the forces of terror, such as Al-Qaeda, ISIL (the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant group) and the militias that use the state’s resources; criminalizing the use of sectarian and racist language in all the state’s institutions; reinforcing the civic nature of the state; revisiting education curricula so as to change all sectarian elements in them; guaranteeing the freedom of expression and the right to peaceful protest and banning the closure of media organisations. It calls for the dismantling of informal security bodies such as the Counter-Terrorism apparatus; ridding the Interior Ministry of militias; and eliminating all security bodies that are affiliated to the office of the prime minister.

Last Monday, amid security tensions witnessed in a number of Iraqi governorates, Iraqi President Fouad Massoum tasked Abadi to start working on the formation of the new government through negotiations with Iraq’s main political forces, which include Sunni and Kurdish political forces.