The political parties are waiting for the Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to voice his official stance with regard to the subject of withdrawing confidence from Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, an MP said.
The president asked the political parties to submit enough signatures and they did, said Muaaayd Tayyeb, Kurdistan Blocs Coalition (KBC) spokesperson.

Tayyeb continued Talabani also formed a committee to confirm the number of signatures and now the political parties expect him to declare his position.

The president has the constitutional authority to demand the House of Representatives withdraw confidence or not to do so, without being affected by pressures, according to Tayyeb.

The KBC official said "nothing has changed" as the political parties insist the PM should be replaced.

Allegedly more than 164 MPs (the legal number) have signed to scrape PM's confidence. However, reports are that the PM has managed to reverse the position of more than 20 Iraqiya List signatories in his interest.

MPs from Maliki's State of Law Coalition (SLC) claim the president has rejected a letter for withdrawing confidence from PM which House Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi had submitted.

They allege the president also prefers negotiations as the means for overcoming the crisis; the same option the National Alliance (NA) calls for.

Major political leaders, namely Kurdistan's President Massoud Barzani, Iraqiya List Leader Ayad Allawi and Sadr Current Leader Muqtada Sadr, first demanded the NA to convince Maliki stop his "unilateral" ruling.

As Maliki did not promise to fulfill the demands, the leaders called on the NA to replace him.

With no response from NA, the MPs have staged a signature campaign against Maliki, who is more and more described as a "dictator," by political leaders.





AKnews