Chaotic scenes in the first session of the new Iraqi parliament Politics News

Iraq’s new parliament has adopted it first session Nearly three months later, the Iraqis voted in the general election and their results were discussed by powerful factions backed by Iran.

As a reflection of the tensions, Sunday’s meeting was chaotic, and the oldest member of parliament and interim president, 73-year-old Mahmoud al-Mashahadani, was taken to hospital after falling ill.

Parliament’s media office did not provide further details on Mashahadani’s condition, except that he was monitoring his blood pressure.

The process of selecting the speakers was interrupted, as the competing political blocs claimed a parliamentary majority.

Mahmoud Abdelwahed of Al Jazeera said a temporary speaker had been appointed and the session had resumed.

“It’s been chaotic here,” he said, speaking from parliamentary media.

“Half an hour after the inauguration of the newly elected parliament, we heard heated debates among members of parliament and then we heard that Mahmoud, the interim speaker of parliament, had been hospitalized,” Abdelwahed said.

The chaotic meeting has marked the beginning of a long political feud between rival groups to elect a new president and prime minister.

Parliament had to elect a spokesperson and two deputies at its first meeting.

The Iraqi parliament speaker is usually a Sunni prime minister, a Shiite prime minister and a Kurdish president.

Parliament also has 30 days from the first session to elect a new president of the country, at which point it will ask the largest parliamentary bloc to form a government.

Disagreement between Shiites

Pro-Iranian groups suffered heavy losses early elections, which were presented in response to the monthly street protests demanding reforms.

The results have led to street protests among supporters of political parties who failed miserably in parliamentary votes.

Last month, the Iraqi federal court upheld the results of the October elections and confirmed the victory of the influential Shiite leader. Moqtada al-Sadr.

The al-Sadr bloc won 73 seats in 329 parliament, according to the latest results, and is leading the way in electing a new prime minister. But he will have to deal with tensions with Shiite opposition groups who continue to reject election results and demand to have a say in the process of forming a government.

The second-placed Sunni coalition (Al-Taqdum (Progress)) won 37 seats.

Pro-Iran factions denounced voter fraud as losing about two-thirds of their seats, a major blow.

Proponents of her case have been working to make the actual transcript of this statement available online.

Iraqi political analyst Zeidon Alkinani said the main obstacle to forming a government was the disagreement caused by the rift between al-Sadr and the Shiite Coordination Framework, with pro-Iran groups such as former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The rule of law, the Fatah alliance and their allies.

“The sadist movement is trying to form a majority government this time around,” Alkinani told Al Jazeera.

“They believe that they have the electoral confidence and power to form a majority government that they would lead themselves this time; a government that would unilaterally dominate, as the sole Shiite agent of such a majority government, with their Kurdish and Sunni partners.”

On the other hand, he added, “The Xita Coordination Framework is using their influence inside and outside the government to ensure that it is included by a consensus government, despite electoral failures.”

“The only clear agreement we are seeing right now is the internal agreement of the Sunni bloc dominated by Taqdum,” he added.

On Sunday, parliamentarians from al-Sadr’s bloc entered the assembly in the capital, Baghdad, wearing white ribbons symbolizing funeral cloths, according to tradition in Mohammed al-Sadr, Moqtada’s father, according to witnesses.

Some independent lawmakers rode in tuk-tuks or motor rickshaws from Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, the epicenter of protests against the government that erupted in October 2019, witnesses added.

They used tuk-tuks to transport the wounded in violent demonstrations.