Allawi Government "most corrupt in Iraq's history"
The Age: Shiite leaders to challenge Allawi
Iraq's religious Shiite parties are challenging an attempt by supporters of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to slide him into the post-election leadership as a consensus candidate.
In the absence of any breakdown of Sunday's national voting, List 169, the religious coalition blessed by the spiritual leader of all Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, claimed a "sweeping victory".
One of its most likely challengers to Dr Allawi's claim to the top post, Husain Shahristani, branded the Allawi interim Government as the most corrupt in Iraq's history.
Dr Shahristani, a nuclear scientist, was jailed by Saddam Hussein for 10 years and is one of four List 169 contenders for the prime ministership.
Dr Shahristani said: "It is very well known that corruption is very widespread from the police to the judicial system. Iraq has never known the level of corruption prevailing now. A lot of public funds have gone missing under the Coalition Provisional Authority and even now."
The scientist used Dr Allawi's Defence Minister, Hazem al-Shaalan, as a proxy target, resurrecting questions about an unexplained airlift of a reported $US300 million from Baghdad to Beirut in the weeks before the election. The Defence Minister said it was a weapons deal. After it was reported by The New York Times, some cash was returned.
Dr Shahristani said: "The fact that the Minister of Defence, on the day there were four suicide bombings in the capital, spends all his day at the airport trying to take a few hundred million dollars in cash out of the country before the elections doesn't speak very well for the Government's performance."
Link (may need subscription or bugmenot)
Report from Middle East Online Link
Analysis from Juan Cole from Monday, January 24, 2005
"This is a very important election,"' Hussain al-Shahristani, a nuclear scientist once jailed by Saddam, told The Associated Press. "The assembly will write the constitution that will guarantee the future of Iraq. He won't have done this if it was just another election," said Shahristani, himself a candidate running on the slate endorsed by al-Sistani. The white-bearded cleric is expected to plunge anew into politics when the assembly begins to draft the constitution which, if adopted in a referendum scheduled to be held by Oct. 15, will be the basis for a second general election before Dec. 15.
Based on past evidence, my guess is that Sistani will push for personal status law to be religious. It governs marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony, etc. Sistani will want Shiites to be under Shiite religious law, Chaldean Catholics to be under Catholic canon law, Sunnis to be under Sunni shariah or Islamic codes, etc. This system is also used in Lebanon and Israel. It has disadvantages for women, and it causes an entanglement of the state with religion, since typically the clergy are the arbiters of it.
Sistani will also likely want a fairly strong Federal state, maybe even a centralized state like like France rather than the Swiss-style cantons that the Kurds seem to want, which will bring him into conflict with the Kurds.
If a parliament/ constitutional assembly can be elected January 30, it will then have to open all the cans of worms in Iraq at once as it crafts the permanent constitution. Link
Iraq's religious Shiite parties are challenging an attempt by supporters of interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi to slide him into the post-election leadership as a consensus candidate.
In the absence of any breakdown of Sunday's national voting, List 169, the religious coalition blessed by the spiritual leader of all Shiites, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, claimed a "sweeping victory".
One of its most likely challengers to Dr Allawi's claim to the top post, Husain Shahristani, branded the Allawi interim Government as the most corrupt in Iraq's history.
Dr Shahristani, a nuclear scientist, was jailed by Saddam Hussein for 10 years and is one of four List 169 contenders for the prime ministership.
Dr Shahristani said: "It is very well known that corruption is very widespread from the police to the judicial system. Iraq has never known the level of corruption prevailing now. A lot of public funds have gone missing under the Coalition Provisional Authority and even now."
The scientist used Dr Allawi's Defence Minister, Hazem al-Shaalan, as a proxy target, resurrecting questions about an unexplained airlift of a reported $US300 million from Baghdad to Beirut in the weeks before the election. The Defence Minister said it was a weapons deal. After it was reported by The New York Times, some cash was returned.
Dr Shahristani said: "The fact that the Minister of Defence, on the day there were four suicide bombings in the capital, spends all his day at the airport trying to take a few hundred million dollars in cash out of the country before the elections doesn't speak very well for the Government's performance."
Link (may need subscription or bugmenot)
Report from Middle East Online Link
Analysis from Juan Cole from Monday, January 24, 2005
"This is a very important election,"' Hussain al-Shahristani, a nuclear scientist once jailed by Saddam, told The Associated Press. "The assembly will write the constitution that will guarantee the future of Iraq. He won't have done this if it was just another election," said Shahristani, himself a candidate running on the slate endorsed by al-Sistani. The white-bearded cleric is expected to plunge anew into politics when the assembly begins to draft the constitution which, if adopted in a referendum scheduled to be held by Oct. 15, will be the basis for a second general election before Dec. 15.
Based on past evidence, my guess is that Sistani will push for personal status law to be religious. It governs marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony, etc. Sistani will want Shiites to be under Shiite religious law, Chaldean Catholics to be under Catholic canon law, Sunnis to be under Sunni shariah or Islamic codes, etc. This system is also used in Lebanon and Israel. It has disadvantages for women, and it causes an entanglement of the state with religion, since typically the clergy are the arbiters of it.
Sistani will also likely want a fairly strong Federal state, maybe even a centralized state like like France rather than the Swiss-style cantons that the Kurds seem to want, which will bring him into conflict with the Kurds.
If a parliament/ constitutional assembly can be elected January 30, it will then have to open all the cans of worms in Iraq at once as it crafts the permanent constitution. Link
posted by exoplanet at 4:25 PM
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