Region

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s parliament announced on Tuesday the reopening of registration for presidential candidates, a day after it called off a session to vote in a new head of state.

One of the two frontrunners, former longtime foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, was “temporarily” suspended by a court, citing years-old corruption accusations after a complaint was filed against him.

His eligibility for the post is being reviewed, with his party announcing it is sticking with his candidacy and that a verdict is expected within days.

Iraq’s political timeline for electing a head of state and forming a government, in the wake of last year’s general election, has been derailed amid political infighting.

Monday’s voting session was not held due to lack of a quorum after several key political blocs and parties announced boycotts — against the backdrop of competing claims to a parliamentary majority.

The office of parliament speaker Mohamed Al Halbussi announced on Tuesday the “reopening of registration for candidates for the post of president of the republic from Wednesday, February 9 and for a period of three days”.

But a date has yet to be announced for a new voting session in parliament.

Only 58 MPs attended Monday’s session — well below the quorum of two thirds of the 329-seat chamber.

The largest political bloc led by firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, as well as the allied Sovereignty Coalition led by Halbussi and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) — from which Zebari hails — all announced boycotts ahead of the session.

Legal expert Ali Al Tamimi denounced Tuesday’s announcement as “unconstitutional”, noting that the legal deadline set to elect a president “cannot be broken, except by a decision from the Federal Court or an amendment of the law”.

Zebari was tipped as one of two frontrunners, out of a total of 25, for the presidency. The other is incumbent President Barham Saleh of the KDP’s rival party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

In response to his suspension, the head of the KDP’s parliamentary bloc, Vyan Sabri, told the state news agency INA on Tuesday: “Mr Zebari is still our sole candidate.”

She denounced the “malicious complaint” leading to his suspension, affirming that his case “will be decided in the next two days”.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Three members of the United Arab Emirates' Federal National Council visited Israel's parliament on Monday, becoming the first Emirati delegation there since the US-brokered normalisation of ties in 2020.

"When we talk about Abraham Accords agreements, we want you to look at the big picture," Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, chairman of the council's defence, interior and foreign affairs committee, said at the Israeli foreign and defence committee.

"It's not a political agreement only, it's not an issue related to security and defence issue. No, it is an agent of change for the whole region," Nuaimi said, advocating "full engagement in all sectors".

Prior to the visit to the Knesset, the Emirati delegation visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial.

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Nuaimi said that after the 2021 war between Israel and Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza, “people were questioning what will happen to the Abraham Accords”, the name of the agreements brokered under the Donald Trump administration

“I want everyone to know there is no way back, we are moving forward, we are not repeating history, we are writing history,” he said.

Ram Ben Barak, head of the Israeli foreign and defence committee hosting Nuaimi as well as fellow Federal National Council members Sara Falaknaz and Marwan Almheiri, called his guests “neighbours and brothers”.

“There’s a misconception, as though the normalisation agreement was based on just one element, of shared threats and challenges, but that’s the smallest part of the deal,” he said.

“Israel is committed to the agreement and plans on enhancing and expanding it in all fields.”

Bahrain and Morocco have also normalised ties with Israel under the accords. Sudan has agreed to do so, but formal diplomatic relations have not yet emerged amid escalating instability in Khartoum.

TUNIS — Tunisian police on Monday blocked access to the country's top judicial watchdog in a move its chief slammed as "illegal", two days after President Kais Saied dissolved the body.

Security forces blocked all roads to the Supreme Judicial Council (CSM) headquarters in Tunis.

"We don't know who issued these orders but we know that they have no legal basis," CSM president Youssef Bouzakher told AFP.

Saied dissolved the body on Sunday, months after sacking the government and seizing wide-reaching powers in Tunisia, often lauded as the only democracy to emerge from the 2011 Arab revolts.

His supporters say his power grab on July 25 was necessary after a decade of misgovernance by corrupt political parties.

Saied vowed on Monday that he would not interfere in court cases or judicial appointments.

"I will never interfere with the judiciary," he said, adding that he had only taken the CSM decision "because it had become necessary, and because the Tunisian people want the country to be cleansed".

Speaking to Prime Minister Najla Bouden in a filmed meeting posted on his Facebook page, he said the courts had been the scene of "farces".

"Whoever thought the judiciary was a tool to achieve his own personal or political goals must know that he will never be able to infiltrate the courts."

But critics say Saied has pushed the country down a dangerous route back towards autocracy.

Bouzakher said the closure of the CSM “proves that we have entered a phase where the executive is using force to seize control of all state institutions, including the judiciary”.

Warning of threats to “rights and liberties”, he said the CSM would carry on with its work.

Saied had said Sunday that the CSM was corrupt and had delayed politically sensitive investigations into the assassinations of left-wing opposition figures Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi.

The CSM said he lacked the legal and constitutional authority to dissolve it.

The body, created in 2016, consists of 45 magistrates, mainly appointed by parliament, and has the power to appoint judges.

DUBAI — Media rights groups on Monday urged Yemen's Houthi rebels to free four journalists sentenced to death for "espionage" in the war-torn country.

The four, Abdul Khaleq Amran, Tawfiq al-Mansouri, Harith Hamid, and Akram Al Walidi were arrested in June 2015 in Yemen's rebel-held capital Sanaa.

The Iran-backed Houthis seized Sanaa from the internationally recognised government in 2014, sparking a civil war that has devastated the already impoverished country.

In April 2020, a Houthi court sentenced the four journalists to death on charges of "treason and spying for foreign states", a verdict condemned at the time by Yemen's government.

"Their arrest was motivated by their reporting on human rights violations committed by Houthi forces," the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Yemeni Journalists' Syndicate (YJS) said in a joint statement.

The two organisations said they were "launching an emergency call... to put pressure on the Houthi authorities to release our colleagues and save their lives".

The Brussels-based IFJ, which represents journalists and unions from more than 140 countries, said the four had suffered “physical and psychological torture” as well as the “denial of the right to be visited and the right to have access to medical care”.

At the time of their trial, Amnesty International criticised their sentencing on “trumped-up charges”, while Reporters Without Borders called the verdict “totally unacceptable”.

Hundreds of thousands have been killed and millions displaced in Yemen’s conflict, which the United Nations has labelled the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya’s parliament on Monday began hearings of hopefuls to replace interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, a process that could spark new east-west power struggles in the troubled North African nation.

Dbeibah’s government took power a year ago with a mandate to lead Libya to December elections aimed at dragging the country out of a decade of conflict.

But since the polls were indefinitely postponed amid deep divisions over their legal basis and controversial presidential candidates, parliament speaker Aguila Saleh has led efforts to have Dbeibah replaced.

Both eastern-based Saleh and Dbeibah, in the western capital Tripoli, were presidential candidates.

Dbeibah has said he will only hand power to an elected administration.

Saleh’s House of Representatives, based in eastern Libya since a violent schism in 2014, said two out of seven candidates had made it through to the final round.

Powerful former interior minister Fathi Bashagha, 59, and outsider Khaled Al Bibass, 51, a former official in the interior ministry, will face a parliamentary vote on Thursday.

Bashagha told the assembly that he wanted to unify divided state institutions, improve security and revive the country’s dismal public services. He also vowed not to stand for future elections.

Bibass said he would work to overcome the country’s divisions and fight inflation.

Libya has seen a decade of conflict since the 2011 revolt that toppled dictator Muammar Qadhafi, leaving a patchwork of militias vying for control over an oil-rich country riven by deep tribal and regional divisions.

Thursday’s vote could see a repeat of a 2014 schism which saw two parallel governments emerge.

The parliament also adopted a “roadmap” towards elections, which looks set to delay the polls further.

It says they must take place within 14 months of an agreement on another divisive issue — a new constitutional declaration.

Qadhafi scrapped Libya’s last constitution when he seized power in 1969.

The assembly is not fully united, and some members have called for Dbeibah to stay in office until elections are held.

The United Nations has also called for a new date to be set for presidential polls rather than yet another transitional government.

BAGHDAD — Doubts hung on Sunday over a scheduled parliamentary vote for Iraq’s president after the supreme court temporarily suspended former foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, a frontrunner for the post, and leading parliamentary factions announced a boycott.

The decisions not to attend Monday’s session again highlight political divisions in a war-scarred country hobbled by corruption and poverty.

The largest parliamentary bloc, holding 73 seats and led by powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, was the first to boycott, saying on Saturday it would not attend the session which is scheduled for midday (09:00 GMT).

That was followed on Sunday with a boycott by the Sovereignty Coalition, made up of 51 MPs and led by parliamentary speaker and Sadr ally Mohammed Al Halbussi.

The third party in their informal alliance, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), from which Zebari hails, said it, too, would not be there to fill its 31 seats. This is in order to “continue consultations and dialogue between political blocs”, it said.

Their decision came after the supreme court cited years-old corruption charges against Zebari in suspending him.

The successive boycotts could result in Monday’s session being cancelled or postponed due to lack of a quorum, which is set at two thirds of the 329-seat chamber.

A scheduled presidential vote follows October legislative elections marred by record-low turnout, post-election threats and violence, and a delay until final results were confirmed in late December.

Intense negotiations among political groups since then have failed to form a majority parliamentary coalition to name a prime minister.

‘Unconstitutional’ 

Zebari was one of two main contenders for the largely ceremonial post of president, which has a four-year mandate and by convention is held by a member of Iraq’s Kurdish minority.

The other favoured candidate, out of roughly 25 in total, is the incumbent Barham Saleh. He is the candidate of KDP’s rival in Iraqi Kurdistan, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

In suspending Zebari, the court said it had received a complaint from lawmakers that his candidacy was “unconstitutional” because of the graft claims.

It said the suspension was “temporary” while the court considers the case.

Iraq’s highest judicial body said the complainants consider that Zebari does not fulfil constitutional requirements that the head of state must have “a good reputation and integrity”.

The court cited his 2016 dismissal from the post of finance minister by parliament “over charges linked to financial and administrative corruption”.

Public funds worth $1.8 million were allegedly diverted to pay for airline tickets for his personal security detail.

Zebari, 68, has always denied all corruption accusations.

“I have not been convicted in any court,” Zebari said in a television interview on Friday night as the charges resurfaced alongside forecasts he would unseat Saleh.

The complaint also cited at least two other judicial cases linked to him, including when he was the country’s long-time foreign minister after the fall of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 US-led invasion.

‘Not a consensus’ candidate 

“Our withdrawal is a message to the Kurds, in particular to the KDP, for them to agree on a single candidate,” a Sadrist MP told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue.

The MP, whose bloc’s leader Sadr controls the complex negotiations to select a new prime minister, said Zebari was “not a consensus” candidate.

But while Sadr’s bloc claims it has enough seats for a “national majority government”, the powerful rival Shiite Coordination Framework, appealed to the supreme court to have their bloc recognised as the majority.

The court rejected their demand, saying it could not decide now, as parliamentary blocs could change.

“No one knows how to be in the opposition. Everyone knows how to share the pie,” Iraqi political analyst Hamzeh Hadad said