As expected, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, rejected the provincial elections law passed by the parliament yesterday, which means they’re back to square one, the political situation has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and the elections are highly unlikely to be held in 2008.
As to what exactly transpired on Monday when the Kurds and ISCI legislators marched out, I’m relying on Marc Lynch and Reidar Visser. Lynch quotes some Arab and Iraqi reports as saying that the Kurds might even leave Maliki’s coalition, causing the government to collapse:
Wouldn’t it be wild if the estimably pro-US Kurds, the biggest fans of a long-term American military presence, bring down Maliki at the height of his perceived power immediately after he expressed support for the removal of US troops by 2010… over a seemingly entirely unrelated issue?
Visser writes in a subscriber-only e-mail update:
With the numerous reports from Iraq about Nuri al-Maliki being in the ascendancy as some kind of strongman with good ties to the security forces, this clear indication of parliamentary weakness as well as the obvious contradiction between his declared objectives as an Iraqi centralist and his choice of alliance partners (the Kurds and ISCI) certainly need to be taken into account as well. In fact, this is the second time in 2008 that the Kurdish-ISCI axis appears to have lost a parliamentary battle, once more forcing them to consider the presidential veto as a last resort.
