Iraqi lawmakers oust Sunni speaker after brawl

[JODO 2]

Iraqi lawmakers oust Sunni speaker after brawl

by Ammar Karim

2 hours, 17 minutes ago

The Iraqi parliament on Monday ousted its Sunni speaker Mahmud Mashhadani after he allegedly ordered his bodyguards to beat up a Shiite MP, the assembly's deputy speaker said.

Of the 168 MPs who attended the session, 113 voted to replace Mashhadani, Khalid al-Attiya told AFP.

"Following a number of notices from lawmakers about his conduct, inefficient administration of assembly sessions and finally the attack by his guards, the assembly decided to oust him," Attiya said.

He said parliament also gave the National Concord Front, the main Sunni political bloc, a week to propose a new candidate for the post of speaker.

"As of now Mashhadani is powerless and he will be on leave. I will take over as speaker until a new speaker is elected," Attiya said.

Mashhadani, known for his loud rhetoric in parliament, set his bodyguards on Shiite lawmaker Fariyad Mohammed on Sunday after a heated verbal exchange outside the parliament hall between the MP and his guards.

Parliament then decided to send Mashhadani on indefinite leave and had ordered Attiya to take over as the acting speaker but on Monday lawmakers formally ousted Mashhadani.

The latest incident was second such involving Mashhadani.

Earlier this year, the speaker had slapped fellow Sunni MP Hussein Falluji near the parliament's cafeteria following a heated verbal exchange.

Mashhadani is a religious fundamentalist of the Salafi school who had a death sentence under executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime commuted to a 15-year prison term in 2000 after he bribed the judge.

A military doctor by trade, the Baghdad native helped create the National Dialogue Council, one of the Sunni parties that belong to the 44-seat Sunni National Concord Front coalition.

Iraq's 275-member parliament was elected on December 15, 2005, as the first to serve a full four-year term after the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

It convened its inaugural session on March 16, 2006, a few weeks after the bombing of the revered Shiite shrine in the northern town of Samarra that triggered brutal nationwide sectarian violence that continues to this day.

In the backdrop of ethnic and sectarian bloodletting, Iraqi lawmakers formed a three-member team of speakers to head the assembly in a bid to pacify the warring communities.

Since then the parliament was led by speaker Mashhadani and his two deputies, Shiite MP Attiya and Kurdish lawmaker Aref Tayfur.

The parliament has often witnessed loud outbursts from lawmakers, especially Sunni MPs who regularly complain of being sidelined in the government as well as in the proceedings of the assembly.

The United Iraqi Alliance, the main Shiite bloc in the assembly, has 115 seats in the parliament, followed by 53 MPs belonging to the Kurdish alliance and 44 representing the Sunni bloc.

The rest are held by a number of other blocs.

The new acting speaker Attiya, a Shiite MP from the Supreme Islamic Council of Iraq, has taught religion for the past 25 years in various countries including Egypt, Lebanon and Iran. He also taught Islamic studies at Oxford University in 2003.

[almaty 19]

wow, they learn allot about democracy from us