BAGHDAD: Angry Iraqi lawmakers halted an attempt by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi to appoint the remainder of his government on Tuesday, disrupting a parliamentary session meant to include a vote on his candidates for key ministries.
The deadlock over forming a cabinet has raised the prospect of further unrest as the country struggles to rebuild and recover after three years of war with Daesh.
MPs banged on tables shouting “illegitimate,” eventually forcing and end to the session as Abdul Mahdi and his proposed ministers left parliament, one lawmaker said, showing Reuters a video of the session taken on his mobile phone.
The MPs were mostly from a grouping led by populist cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr and allies on the list of former premier Haider Al-Abadi, who opposed his picks for the hotly contested interior and defense ministries.
Abdul Mahdi later said he would let parliament propose a date for the vote, effectively throwing the ball in their court to choose suitable names for the eight portfolios still empty.
He told journalists he was “waiting for parliament to give a date to complete the cabinet after they come to an agreement,” saying that a “state of chaos” had prevented the formation of a government, state TV reported.
“We will not present more ministers. Parliament (should) vote on the current list, or another list,” state TV quoted the premier as saying.
The incident vividly showed the depth of disagreement over who should fill the remaining government posts, and Abdul Mahdi’s weak position in the face of divisions between parliament’s two strongest groupings.
The rivalry between Sadr and Iran-backed militia leader Hadi Al-Amiri, who lead the two biggest blocs after a general election in May, has intensified preventing the formation of a full government, which currently has 14 out of 22 ministers.
INTERIOR MINISTER DISPUTE
Sadr says candidates not affiliated with political sides must be presented. Amiri wants his ally Falih Al-Fayyadh, former head of an Iran-backed paramilitary force, for the position of interior minister.
Abdel Mahdi said in a statement on Monday he would present Fayyadh as his candidate for the interior for parliament to vote on.
Sadr and Abadi’s lists refused to attend the session in response but stormed in halfway through, charging that the session did not have a quorum to take place.
Sadr has threatened to withdraw support for the government if it is not formed soon and whip up popular protests.
Lack of jobs and services led to mass protests in the southern city of Basra in September.
On Tuesday police dispersed dozens of protesters in Basra in a similar but small demonstration, witnesses said.
Raucous Iraqi MPs halt session to vote on government
Raucous Iraqi MPs halt session to vote on government
- Iraq’s MPs halted a vote on the remaining candidates for Cabinet seats
- Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi submitted overnight the names of eight candidates
Sudanese trek through mountains to escape Kordofan fighting
- For eight days, Sudanese farmer Ibrahim Hussein led his family through treacherous terrain to flee the fighting in southern Kordofan — the latest and most volatile front in the country’s 31-month-old
PORT SUDAN: For eight days, Sudanese farmer Ibrahim Hussein led his family through treacherous terrain to flee the fighting in southern Kordofan — the latest and most volatile front in the country’s 31-month-old conflict.
“We left everything behind,” said the 47-year-old, who escaped with his family of seven from Keiklek, near the South Sudanese border.
“Our animals and our unharvested crops — all of it.”
Hussein spoke to AFP from Kosti, an army-controlled city in White Nile state, around 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Khartoum.
The city has become a refuge for hundreds of families fleeing violence in oil-rich Kordofan, where the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — locked in a brutal war since April 2023 — are vying for control.
Emboldened by their October capture of the army’s last stronghold in Darfur, the RSF and their allies have in recent weeks descended in full force on Kordofan, forcing nearly 53,000 people to flee, according to the United Nations.
“For most of the war, we lived in peace and looked after our animals,” Hussein said.
“But when the RSF came close, we were afraid fighting would break out. So we left, most of the way on foot.”
He took his family through the rocky spine of the Nuba Mountains and the surrounding valley, passing through both paramilitary and army checkpoints.
This month, the RSF consolidated its grip on West Kordofan — one of three regional states — and seized Heglig, which lies on Sudan’s largest oil field.
With their local allies, they have also tightened their siege on the army-held cities of Kadugli and Dilling, where hundreds of thousands face mass starvation.
Running for their lives
In just two days this week, nearly 4,000 people arrived in Kosti, hungry and terrified, said Mohamed Refaat, Sudan chief of mission for the UN’s International Organization for Migration.
“Most of those arriving are women and children. Very few adult men are with them,” he told AFP, adding that many men stay behind “out of fear of being killed or abducted.”
The main roads are unsafe, so families are taking “long and uncertain journeys and sleeping wherever they can,” according to Mercy Corps, one of the few aid agencies operating in Kordofan.
“Journeys that once took four hours now force people to walk for 15 to 30 days through isolated areas and mine-littered terrain,” said Miji Park, interim country director for Sudan.
This month, drones hit a kindergarten and a hospital in Kalogi in South Kordofan, killing 114 people, including 63 children, according to the World Health Organization.
Adam Eissa, a 53-year-old farmer, knew it was time to run. He took his wife, four daughters and elderly mother — all crammed into a pickup truck with 30 others — and drove for three days through “backroads to avoid RSF checkpoints,” he told AFP from Kosti.
They are now sheltering in a school-turned-shelter housing around 500 displaced people.
“We receive some help, but it is not enough,” said Eissa, who is trying to find work in the market.
According to the IOM’s Refaat, Kosti — a relatively small city — is already under strain. It hosts thousands of South Sudanese refugees, themselves fleeing violence across the border.
It cost Eissa $400 to get his family to safety. Anyone who does not have that kind of money — most Sudanese, after close to three years of war — has to walk, or stay behind.
Those left behind
According to Refaat, transport prices from El-Obeid in North Kordofan have increased more than tenfold in two months, severely “limiting who can flee.”
In besieged Kadugli, 56-year-old market trader Hamdan is desperate for a way out, “terrified” that the RSF will seize the city.
“I sent my family away a while ago with my eldest son,” he told AFP via satellite Internet connection, asking to be identified only by his first name. “Now I am looking for a way to leave.”
Every day brings “the sound of shelling and sometimes gunfire,” said Kassem Eissa, a civil servant and head of a family of eight.
“I have three daughters, the youngest is 14,” he told AFP, laying out an impossible choice: “Getting out is expensive and the road is unsafe” but “we’re struggling to get enough food and medicine.”
The UN has issued repeated warnings of the violence in Kordofan, raising fears of atrocities similar to those reported in the last captured city in Darfur, including summary executions, abductions and rape.
“If a ceasefire is not reached around Kadugli,” Refaat said, “the scale of violence we saw in El-Fasher could be repeated.”
