Iraqi parliament asked to convene

IRAQ’S president said yesterday he would convene the new parliament for the first time on March 12, beginning a 60-day countdown during which lawmakers must elect a new head of state and sign off on a prime minister and cabinet.

Renewed violence across the country yesterday underscored a dangerous leadership vacuum as Sunni Arab and Kurdish politicians increased pressure on Shi’ite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to abandon his bid for a new term, and leaders of Iraq’s Shi’ite majority struggled to overcome internal divisions.

The constitution requires parliament to meet no later than four weeks after the vote was certified, which occurred on February 12 nearly two months after the electionn.

“We will call today for holding the meeting on the 12th of this month because it is the last day that the constitution allows us to hold the meeting of the new parliament,” President Jalal Talabani told reporters.

But a leading member of al-Jaafari’s Dawa Party, Ali al-Adib, said parliament’s main Shi’ite bloc would request the session be postponed until there was agreement on who should occupy the top government positions.

Anti-American Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr predicted a “quick solution” to snarled attempts to form a government.

Emerging from a meeting in the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and secular Shiite parliamentarian Ahmed Chalabi, al-Sadr said: “All obstacles to forming a national unity government soon will be resolved.”

Chalabi, the one-time Pentagon favourite as Iraq’s post-Saddam Hussein leader, said al-Jaafari deserved the chance to form a government. But Talabani, a Kurd, said al-Jaafari was too divisive a figure.