Given Abadi’s strained relations with the Kurdistan Region during the latter stage of his tenure, it is unclear how this will impact relations between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which have thawed substantially since the September 2017 Kurdish independence referendum and its aftermath.
Even if Abdul-Mahdi is removed from his position, it will still take some time before a new government is formed.
“As the summer starts and protests begin over electricity, water, jobs, corruption and so forth in southern Iraq, some of the major political parties are attempting to position themselves for what could happen,” Joel Wing, author of the Musings on Iraq blog, told Rudaw English.
“Ammar al-Hakim’s Hikma list has gone into the opposition in parliament and there are rumors spreading that Muqtada al-Sadr is willing to back Haidar al-Abadi for the premier again if he leaves Dawa,” Wing said.
“Nothing will come of this right now,” however, says Wing.
“Forming a new government would take weeks if not months, and then the political parties rather than Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi would be blamed for the lack of services during the summer.”
Wing also notes that any new government could “be just as ineffective as the Abdul-Mahdi government has been”.
“Of course, this could all change depending on how big and angry the summer demonstrations get.”
Although Abdul-Mahdi appears to have bought himself time by finally completing his cabinet, under sustained pressure, any one of Iraq's myriad challenges could bring down his government.
In recent years the people of Basra have staged increasingly larger and angrier protests against the Iraqi government over chronic shortages of the most basic necessities, such as water, in their oil-rich province.
Abadi was a wartime prime minister and consequently ended up neglecting other issues, such as establishing effective anti-corruption initiatives. It is unclear whether he would prove any better if he won another term as Iraq’s prime minister post-Islamic State (ISIS) conflict.
Relations between Erbil and Abadi’s government were initially quite good. The new premier was seen as a more conciliatory and welcoming figure compared to his predecessor Nouri al-Maliki.
Iraq and the Kurdistan Region worked together against the common threat posed by ISIS, which briefly saw Iraqi Army and Kurdish Peshmerga forces coordinate early in the battle for Mosul, which began in October 2016.
In July 2017, Abadi said he would not deal with the “unconstitutional, illegitimate” referendum by sending tanks into the Kurdistan Region, which was exactly what forces under his command tried to do just four months later.
When the Region pursued its referendum that September, Abadi immediately ordered the closure of its airspace and suggested several times he sought to completely dismantle Kurdish autonomy. He also sought to place sanctions on its banks under the pretext of tackling corruption in the Region.
In October 2017, Iraqi military forces and Hashd al-Shaabi paramilitaries seized Kirkuk from the Kurds and also engaged the Peshmerga in skirmishes along the Region’s constitutional borders. The Peshmerga notably destroyed an M1 Abrams tank used by the Hashd.
By 2018, relations had improved as election season came to Iraq. The flight ban was ended and Abadi campaigned in the Kurdistan Region, albeit in half-empty halls, where he once again tried to make the case for doing away with the Region’s autonomy.
Relations thawed, but were by no means very cordial until the formation of Abdul-Mahdi’s government. Seeing an opportunity to mend fences, former-president Masoud Barzani, who spearheaded the referendum, visited Baghdad in November 2018 where he met with several Iraqi officials, including a cordial meeting with Abadi himself.
However, last March, after Abadi called elements within the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) “extremists”, Barzani strongly criticized the former Iraqi premier, accusing him of “destroying the positive atmosphere post-election” in Iraq.
If Abadi does get his old job back, it is unclear what this might mean for the prevailing “positive atmosphere”. If he leaves the Islamic Dawa Party, in order to win the backing of the influential Sadr, he might adopt a different approach and tone toward the Kurds.
Nechirvan Barzani, now president of the Kurdistan Region, has already visited neighbouring Turkey, where he was warmly received by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan also participated in Baghdad’s flight ban and openly threatened the Region over the referendum, but ultimately did not take any other action.
Although this was Barzani’s first visit to Turkey as president, it was not the first time he has visited since the referendum in his former capacity as prime minister. His conciliatory approach could similarly enable Erbil to maintain good and workable bilateral relations with Baghdad if Abadi does once again become prime minister.
Since Abdul-Mahdi became Iraq’s prime minister last October, Fuad Hussein, Masoud Barzani’s former chief of staff, became Iraq’s minister of finance. This was the first time the Kurds have held this post since Hoshyar Zebari, also a KDP member, was removed in a vote of no-confidence in 2016 through a suspicious secret ballot.
Baghdad is also once again sending Kurdistan its constitutional share of Iraq’s federal budget, which Abadi sought to reduce later in his term. At that time, Abadi argued that the population of the Kurdistan Region compared to the rest of Iraq should disqualify it from receiving 17 percent, arguing its share should be reduced to 12.6 percent.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned at the time that 12.6 percent was not enough to cover the Region’s expenses.
The budget was previously cut altogether by Maliki in February 2014 in response to the KRG’s independent oil exports. A financial crisis was triggered as a result and then worsened by the ISIS war and the international decline in the world price of oil that same year.
Presently, Kurdistan has not met its end of the 2019 budget agreement to deliver 250,000 barrels of oil per day to Baghdad. It is also continuing to export oil independently.
President Barzani recently said his region has no issues handing over the oil “in principle” but insisted that “before it happens, agreements should be made”.
He pointed to the economic pain the Region suffered as a result of the 2014 budget cut, which resulted in billions of dollars of debt to foreign oil companies, which it is now starting to repay.
“We have discussed these things and talked about how we can reach a deal that Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region can agree on,” Barzani said.
Wing said the Kurdistan Region is presently “getting a free ride from the Abdul-Mahdi government”.
“It is getting its budget allotment but not meeting its quota of oil exports for the central government set under the 2019 budget, which is greatly angering some Shiite parliamentarians,” he said.
“That situation would likely change under any new prime minister and not in the KRG’s favor.”
