Maliki survives no-confidence move

http://www.ninanews.com/english/News_Details.asp?ar95_VQ=FLLKDE

Baghdad (NINA) – The President's Office affirmed that quorum to withdraw confidence from Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has not been achieved.

In a statement to the press issued on Saturday, June 9, by the President's Office said that in response to rumors circulated by the media and because the President is committed to abide by the Constitution and to have the public informed.

The statement said that the President received a request to withdraw confidence from the Prime Minister, signed by 160 lawmakers; later 11 lawmakers withdrew their signatures, while 2 others put their requests on hold, making the number of signatures received demanding withdrawal of confidence does not meet the required number; therefore the quorum to withdraw confidence is not been achieved.

Originally, over 200 MP's had signed the petition, but PM Maliki appears to have succeeded in putting pressure on enough of them to back off for the moment. The rest are meeting in Erbil to look for another way.

With Maliki still retaining his position as head of Security, I suspect that he has been busy for along time creating files on all the MP's in case he might be able to use any dirt to blackmail them into submission. The rest could be bribed, as he is a multi-billionaire with much of it stashed in Swiss accounts. He has worked hard over the past 18 months to retain all the military, police, and security power in order to consolidate his dictatorship.

The World Trade Organization met also on Saturday, and Iraq's request for membership was rejected. That was expected. They need a full government, and they need an internationally tradable currency to engage in international trade.

The UN Security Council meets on June 15 to determine once again if Iraq should be released from Chapter VII sanctions imposed on the country in 1991. Maliki's survival in the political crisis yesterday might be interpreted as a "stable government," allowing the UN to release Iraq from the sanctions. But all it would really mean is that dictatorships are more stable than democracies.

It's hard to say how all of these political events will affect the revaluation of their currency when it is re-introduced as an internationally tradable currency. There are many opinions, but fewer provable facts.