Baghdad A meeting was held today, Thursday, at Baghdad Palace, which included President of the Republic Barham Salih, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi, Speaker of Parliament Muhammad Al-Halbousi, and Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council, Judge Faiq Zidan, to discuss the recent developments and the dangerous implications of them.
The meeting stressed that the recent events in the country negatively affect the national efforts aimed at achieving security and stability and preserving the prestige and sovereignty of the state, and the national project adopted by the people’s forces and political and social actors in order to get the country out of the current crises and challenges in preparation for holding fair and equitable elections.
The meeting affirmed that the continuing security turmoil and encroachment on the state’s authority and its right to hold the security and military decision represents a serious violation of the state’s authority and prestige in enforcing the law and protecting the security of citizens, and exposes the country’s stability to real risks, which calls for an active presence of the position of the various political forces in order to address this escalation and support the state in confining weapons in its hand, closing ranks and stopping sedition, and taking unified, serious and decisive stances to remedy the crisis.
The meeting stressed the need to respect the decisions issued by the judiciary and respect the procedures of state institutions in legal accountability, not to be subjected to decisions of the judiciary outside the constitutional frameworks, and to adhere to exclusively legal procedures and contexts, in order to uphold the rule of law and the principle of citizenship in a state that protects its people and guarantees the rights of all citizens without discrimination.
The meeting affirmed that the parliamentary elections will be held next October, which are of great importance as they come after a popular movement demanding reform, and after the accumulation of crises, mismanagement and widespread corruption, the holding of elections is a constitutional and national duty and it should not be hesitant in it, as it should be a means to get out of the current problems and challenges that the country suffers from it and represents the peaceful path of change, and in order to achieve this goal, the necessary conditions necessary for the electoral process must be met, and the implementation of standards of integrity and transparency in its various stages must not be waived and the broad participation guaranteed, in order to ensure the free will of the Iraqis to choose their representatives away from fraud, manipulation and pressure, and so that the outcome of the elections will be a true reflection of the will of the people and their choices.
Source: National Iraqi News Agency