Iraq Parliament passes food security bill, Sadr threatens resignations
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The Iraqi parliament passes an emergency food security bill that will permit Baghdad to allocate public funds for the country's food security after months without a budget.
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Iraqi lawmakers attend the first session of the new Iraqi parliament in Baghdad, January 9, 2022 (Reuters)
The Iraqi parliament passed the food security bill, on Wednesday, which will allow the government to use the country's surplus public funds to fulfill the needs of the Iraqi people and export gas from Iran to generate electricity.
The bill came after months of a political deadlock that divided the legislative body.
"The parliament, during its eleventh session chaired by Parliament Speaker Mohamed Al-Halbousi, with the attendance of 273 MPs, passed the Emergency Law for Food Security and Development," the parliament said in a statement.
The statement explained that the law aimed to fulfill food security, minimize poverty rates, establish financial stability, maintain the services offered to citizens, raise the living standards for the Iraqi people, and provide work opportunities, as well as resume projects that had been previously stalled and enable Iraqis to utilize the national revenues.
The bill would also grant nearly 15,000 young Iraqis that had been working as temporary employees a permanent job on the Iraqi government's payroll.
The Iraqi people were split on the bill, with some welcoming the news and others opposing it staunchly. The latter saw that the bill was "the law for stealing food" and criticized all the MPs that voted in favor of the law's passing.
Those among the first ones that faced criticism were the MPs of the Coordination Framework, which had been at the forefront of opposing the bill's passing until they had a change of mind just yesterday when they surprisingly voted in favor of the bill.
Iraq is undergoing a political crisis and blockade due to an impasse on electing a president as the political factions are divided on whom would be the best candidate.
Sadr calls on MPs to prepare for resignation
Sadrist Movement leader Muqtada Al-Sadr called on the MPs of his parliamentary bloc, which holds the majority in parliament, to "draft their resignations in preparation for handing them over to the speaker of the parliament" at his direction.
The announcement came in retaliation for the bill that Al-Sadr himself applauded the passing of, cautioning that the implementation of the law might allow "corrupt" individuals to exploit it.
He proposed forming a legislative special committee to oversee the implementation of the law and prevent the corrupt from "stealing the people's food."
"Reforming Iraq will not happen except through a government that holds a national majority [...] all the MPs of the Sadrist Movement are ready to resign from Parliament, and there are two options: either opposition or resignation."
