Early Iraq polls pledged within year

Alongside election vow, PM-designate vows to fight graft amid challenges

BAGHDAD－Iraqi Prime Minister-designate Adnan al-Zurfi on Tuesday pledged to hold early elections within a year and to firmly fight corruption in the country.

In an address to the people of Iraq, Zurfi said he will conduct free, fair, and transparent elections, in cooperation with the United Nations assistance mission to Iraq "within a maximum period of one year after the formation of the next government".

Zurfi pledged to fight corruption in the Iraqi ministries and other institutions, as well as sending the 2020 budget to the parliament as soon as possible after reviewing means to increase revenues, especially non-oil ones, and reducing unnecessary spending to address the fiscal deficit.

He said his government would protect demonstrators and civilian activists, and work hard to pursue those who had killed protesters and members of the security forces during the long-running ant i-government protests. He vowed to bring those responsible to justice, in addition to responding to the legitimate demands of the protesters for achieving social justice, providing job opportunities and improving the basic services.

Zurfi also pledged to make the greatest effort to confront the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, and to support the crisis committee in protecting the Iraqi people from this threat.

According to an Agence France-Presse tally compiled from medics, the COVID-19 illness is known to have caused 12 deaths in Iraq and infected a further 133 people.

Baghdad entered into a six-day curfew at 11 pm on Tuesday, and more than half of Iraq's provinces have announced similar restrictions of varying lengths.

Anti-terror efforts

Zurfi also vowed to work hard to open up to all the neighboring countries, the region, and the international community in general, in a way that preserves the independence of Iraq as a sovereign country, and as an essential and active partner in combating global terrorism.

Earlier in the day, Iraqi President Barham Salih asked Zurfi to form a new Cabinet in the Presidential Palace in central Baghdad.

Zurfi's nomination came one day after the deadline of 15 days set by the Iraqi Constitution for political blocs to nominate a candidate for the post of prime minister-designate to the president.

Under the Constitution, the prime minister-designate has 30 days to put together a cabinet and present it to the parliament for approval, and the parliament must approve the government program and each individual minister in separate absolute majority votes.

The nomination also came as Iraq faced two separate rocket attacks, one near the high-security Green Zone in Baghdad late on Tuesday after a dawn attack hit a military base hosting United States-led coalition and NATO troops.

A total of 25 rocket strikes have targeted the US embassy in Baghdad or bases hosting foreign troops since late October, killing three US military personnel, one British soldier and one Iraqi serviceman.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Washington pinned the blame for many of them on Kataeb Hezbollah, an Iran-backed faction in the Hashed, which is nominally incorporated into the Iraqi state's armed forces.

Zurfi served multiple terms as governor of the Shiite holy city of Najaf and was elected in a 2018 parliamentary vote under the Nasr coalition, led by ex-PM Haider al-Abadi.

He once belonged to the Dawa party, an opposition force to Saddam Hussein who was ousted in the 2003 US-led invasion, and has spent years in the US.

The Iraqi-US dual national would have to renounce his US citizenship to take up the premiership.

He met late on Tuesday with outgoing Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi, who resigned in December during Iraq's unprecedented wave of anti-government rallies.

While he is likely to have the backing of some Shiite parties and the Kurdish and Sunni factions, he was quickly spurned by the powerful Fatah bloc, the parliament's second-largest.

"We reject the president's unconstitutional step," said a statement by Fatah, the political arm of the Hashed al-Shaabi military network that includes factions allied with Washington's arch-foe Teheran.

The US was more upbeat. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Iraqis wanted "a government that upholds Iraq's sovereignty, provides basic needs, is free of corruption, and protects their human rights".

If Zurfi "puts these interests first, he will have US and international support", Pompeo wrote on Twitter.

Xinhua - Agencies