ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Seven months after establishing a government, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil-Abdul-Mahdi has finally filled the remaining empty chairs around his cabinet table, approving nominations for the ministries of justice, defense, and the interior. Following weeks of pressure from Shiite party blocs, Iraq’s highest religious authority, and firebrand cleric and kingmaker Muqtada al-Sadr, the PM may have successfully extinguished a political fire that threatened to bring down his administration. The Baghdad parliament approved the nominees on Monday afternoon. Judge Farouk Shawani won parliament’s vote of confidence to become minster of justice. He is a Kurd and a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), who won the backing of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Shawani was however presented by Abdul-Mahdi as an independent, according to Rudaw’s correspondent in Baghdad Mustafa Goran. Najah Al Shammari, a Sunni politician from the Al-Mihwar al-Watani Alliance, won parliamentary approval to become minister of defense – a post typically reserved for a Sunni candidate. Yassin Al Yasiri, a Shiite politician from the Bina Coalition, was also approved by the parliament to become minister of the interior – a post typically reserved for a Shiite candidate. Savana Al Tai failed, a Christian candidate, failed to win parliamentary approval to become minister of education. The post is typically reserved for a Sunni candidate. It is now the only department without a minister. Parliament’s rival blocs had squabbled over the senior posts for months. Top ministerial jobs are typically divided up on sectarian lines between Iraq’s Shiite majority and its Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Abdul-Mahdi, an independent technocrat appointed by President Barham Salih, has tried to balance the demands of Iraq’s deeply divided parties and ethnoreligious groups. Although the cabinet dispute appears to be settled, the Iraqi PM is also under mounting pressure to urgently fix the country’s ramshackle infrastructure and address widespread corruption. Iraq also risks being dragged into a proxy war between the US and Iran. Abdul-Mahdi is pursuing a neutral stance in the tensions and hopes to mediate between Iraq’s allies in Washington and Tehran. However, pro-Iran parties and militias are causing the PM problems which rivals may try to exploit.
