Al-Azm leads Sunni race for six ministries under Iraq’s “electoral weight equation”
Shafaq News- Baghdad
Sunni political forces are expected to retain six ministries in Iraq’s next government under ongoing power-sharing understandings, Azzam al-Hamdani of the Al-Azm Alliance told Shafaq News on Friday, a day after Prime Minister-designate Ali al-Zaidi submitted the new government’s ministerial program to Parliament.
Al-Hamdani said negotiations within the Sunni political camp —which holds a combined 77 seats in Iraq’s 329-member Parliament— are proceeding according to an “electoral weight equation,” under which ministries are distributed based on parliamentary representation.
Based on the current understandings, Muthanna al-Samarrai’s Al-Azm Alliance holds 17 political “points,” entitling it to two ministries in addition to the deputy prime minister position, while Mohammed al-Halbousi’s Taqaddum (Progress) Alliance retained the speakership of Parliament. Sarmad al-Khanjar’s Al-Siyada (Sovereignty) Alliance and the Al-Hasm Alliance, headed by caretaker Defense Minister Thabit al-Abbasi, hold nine and eight points respectively, with Al-Hamdani describing Al-Azm as the strongest Sunni bloc in terms of parliamentary representation.
He also denied reports of changes or rotations involving Sunni-held ministries, stressing that existing understandings remain intact pending a final agreement.
On Thursday, al-Zaidi formally submitted the government’s 14-point ministerial program to Parliament Speaker Haibet al-Halbousi ahead of a parliamentary session expected to vote on the cabinet early next week.
Read more: Ali al-Zaidi named Iraq's prime minister: Easy nomination, harder road ahead
Negotiations over ministries are continuing under a “points” system tied to parliamentary representation, in which blocs require at least 10 seats to secure service ministries and more than 15 seats for sovereign portfolios. Cabinet posts in Iraq are traditionally distributed through political agreements under the muhasasa system, a post-2003 power-sharing arrangement among the country’s major political and ethnic groups.
According to circulating political understandings, the next government is expected to consist of 22 ministries, including 12 allocated to the Shiite Coordination Framework, the largest bloc in Parliament, and four to Kurdish parties.
