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| (AIN) |
In what appeared to be a concession speech Prime Minister Haidar Abadi said that he would not hold onto power. Since May, all of the premier’s plans have gone awry. He was hoping for an easy victory in the elections and came in third. He believed that aligning with Moqtada al-Sadr and his Sairoon would assure him of a second term. Instead, Sadr abandoned him for an alliance with the pro-Iran Hashd Fatah list led by Badr’s Hadi Amiri after the protests and riots in Basra. His remarks just confirmed what was already a fait accompli.
Abadi came into office in 2014 as the anti-Nuri al-Maliki
who was becoming an autocrat, concentrating power in his hands, using the
security forces and militias against his opponents, and angering most of the other
ruling parties. Abadi ended up winning the war against the Islamic State, but
stumbled with almost everything else. For instance, twice he said he was
launching an anti-corruption campaign. The first time he was actually making
budget cuts. The second time he did nothing substantive. He also proved a bad
politician. Sadr and Ammar Hakim were his two biggest supporters when he
initially came into office, yet he never
consulted with them to build up support for any of his policies alienating
them. His own Dawa and State of Law parties made similar comments about his
leadership style. After the May 2018 election rank and file members of his Nasr
list complained that he
never talked to them and only consulted with a small group of close advisers.
His final legacy will be of a prime minister that had every chance to carry out
real changes in Iraq, yet failed to take advantage of his situation.
SOURCES
AIN, “Abadi abandons the second term and regrets his nomination,”
9/13/18
Buratha News, “A member of Nasr alliance accuses Abadi of pursuing
dictatorial style within the coalition,” 8/7/18
Kazimi, Nibras, “What is happening in Iraq?” Talisman Gate,
Again, 10/29/15
New Sabah, “Abadi identifies two paths of reform and choice
of ministers reached an advanced stage,” 2/29/16
Rasheed, Ahmed, “Iraq’s coalition members press PM to
consult before ordering reforms,” Reuters, 10/28/15
2 comments:
I have just seen a programme on BBC television entitled "The Miracle of the Marshes of Iraq". It is a "Natural World Film" the copywright of Aqua Vilta Film Ltd MMX.The series editor being Tim Martin. Unfortunately I missed the opening section. So I am not aware of the reasons as to why Sadddam Hussain took action to undermine the operations of the marshes - perhaps for reasons of control. Then as the film seemingly dates back to 2010, I am not clear as to what progress has been made on this matter since then. Whilst I can google to pursue these matters, I also wondered if you have covered the issue on your site in the past. For my sins when I served in the RAF in Iraq in 1955-56, I never visited the nearbye marsh areas - nor was I aware of others on the camp who did this.
Hi Harry,
I think that whole video is available on Youtube or at least it used to be.
Here's an article I wrote about why Saddam drained the marshes after the Gulf War
http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-saddam-destroyed-eco-system-and-its.html
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