Iraqi President consents to poll
BAGHDAD, Oct 31, (Agencies): Iraqi President Barham Saleh announced on Thursday his consent for holding early elections with a new electoral law.
In a televised address to the Iraqi people, Saleh said Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi agreed to tender his resignation, urging political parties to select “an acceptable successor.”
“The current situation cannot persist and we really need serious reforms and great changes,” said the president after a week of demonstrations claimed 100 lives and left the nation engulfed in much chaos.
Saleh added that the presidency had already begun sponsoring national dialogue to tackle structural flaws in the administration, assuring the people that he was seeking to reform the governing system.
The president also indicated that he was pursuing contacts with various forces for drafting a new electoral law as prelude to old early and fair polls.
Corruption files have been referred to the judiciary, he said, stressing on the necessity for transparency and adherence to the laws and peoples’ rights.
He also called for speedy action to penalize “the criminals and those who have been complacent” in addressing the nation issues.
Iraqi security forces killed one protester and wounded more than 50 on Thursday as tens of thousands resumed mass demonstrations to demand an end to the sectarian power-sharing system they blame for endemic corruption and economic hardships.
More than 250 people have been killed in clashes with security forces and pro-government paramilitary groups since protests began on Oct 1 and eventually swelled into the worst mass unrest in Iraq since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein.
The protester was killed in the capital Baghdad early on Thursday when security forces fired a tear-gas canister into his chest – the latest to die of canister-related injuries.
Meanwhile, Iraq’s political elite was gripped by a power struggle that raised pressure for the removal of Abdul Mahdi but protesters said this would not be enough.
“We want a total change of government, we don’t want one or two officials fired and replaced with other corrupt ones. We want to completely uproot the government,” said protester Hussein, who did not give a last name, in Tahrir Square.
“They think we will protest for one or two days then go home. No, we are staying here until the government is uprooted.”
Protesters from across Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic divides thronged the centre of Baghdad in a show of fury at an elite they see as deeply corrupt, beholden to foreign powers and responsible for daily privations and shambolic public services.
Protests also took place in seven other provinces, mostly in the southern Shi’ite heartland. Thousands gathered in Nassiriya, Diwaniya and oil-rich Basra while hundreds hit the streets in Hilla, Samawa, and the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf.
Two rockets were fired into Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone on Wednesday, killing one Iraqi soldier and adding to the violence gripping the country amid unprecedented anti-government protests and a violent security crackdown.