TNT:
CandyKisses: Urgent2023.. He started with a good news and ends with hope for the Iraqis.
{Reports: Al-Furat News} Report: Ammar Al-Masoudi
2023 was not a normal year for Iraqis like other years in the past, so it began with an Iraqi good news in a sports victory with a political touch that was absent from the country for 40 years and passed with local elections that froze for a decade.
A football tournament with a political flavor
During this year, which is coming to an end, Iraqis lived happy times with winning the Gulf Cup for the 4th time in the history of the country, and very difficult times with the events of the bloody city of Kirkuk and the tragedy of the Hamdaniya fire, but at the same time the swinging political, economic and security developments remained the most influential on the mood of the street and the Iraqi citizen, who he hopes will bring 2024 political and economic stability.
The beginning of 2023 began promising for Iraq, the country that has suffered during the last two decades from acts of violence, terrorism, and sharp political, national and sectarian divisions, and many expected that the ways to succeed are in front of Prime Minister Mohammed Shiaa Al-Sudani after he was chosen as prime minister at the end of October 2022.
For the first time in years, parliament approves a prime minister by the majority of the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish political forces, which were recombined within the framework of the so-called “state administration alliance”, in addition to the unlimited support provided to him by the coordination framework, and moreover; Al-Sudani had inherited from his predecessor, Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazimi, a financial treasury estimated at about 85 billion dollars, and more than 100 tons of gold, in addition to the relative security space that the country experienced after bitter years of unrest and violence.
Cut the dollar
In February, the Central Bank of Iraq, in coordination with the government, decided to raise the value of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar from 1460 to 1320 dinars per dollar, as part of attempts to alleviate the crisis of high dollar exchange rates in the parallel market and its impact on inflation and prices in the markets on citizens.
International court ruling. And a broken execution
Although in March, the government won an international court ruling against Turkey for wrongdoing in the case of the Kurdistan region’s oil crossing into the port of Ceyhan, the subsequent repercussions of this ruling caused Iraq to lose more than $5 billion after the suspension of continuous oil pumping since that date.
The biggest budget in Iraq
In mid-May, the largest annual budget in Iraq was approved since 2003, and during the budget some articles of the constitution were amended, including Article 14, which provoked the ire of the Kurdistan region, and prompted the head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Massoud Barzani, describing it as violations of the rights and legitimacy of the region, saying: “The Kurdistan region is not only a red line but a line of death.”
Article 14, after the amendment, gave the legitimacy of the federal government in Baghdad to deduct the financial dues to any governorate of the Kurdistan region and finance them directly, that is, the distribution of the salaries of the region’s employees through Baghdad and not Erbil, in the event that the territorial government does not disburse the financial dues to the governorates, in accordance with the standards followed in the law.
At the end of the same month, the Federal Court ruled that the Kurdistan Regional Parliament was unconstitutional, and that all decisions issued by the Kurdistan Regional Parliament from October 2022 were considered null and void.
Burning the Holy Quran and its repercussions
In June, the case of burning the Holy Quran in Sweden erupted by a Christian immigrant of Iraqi origin, causing severe popular anger and a political crisis with Sweden, especially after people stormed the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and burned it, and then the government summoned the Swedish ambassador, as well as recalling its ambassador in Stockholm and cutting off relations between the two countries.
Against the background of the events, the Supreme Religious Authority sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations regarding the attack on a copy of the Holy Quran with a license from the Swedish police, in which it expressed its condemnation and condemnation of what happened and called on the United Nations to take effective steps to prevent the recurrence of his likes and push countries to reconsider the legislation that allows it to occur.
Displacement of Saco
At the beginning of the first week of July, President Abdul Latif Rashid issued the decisions of the Republican Decree on the appointment of Patriarch Louis Sayko, as the position of Patriarch of Babylon over the Chaldeans in Iraq and the world, and in the mantrust of its endowments, which prompted the Chaldean Patriarchate in Iraq to announce its rejection of the decision.
American crowds and official exile
In August, various media outlets and political circles reported on the increase in the number of American soldiers in Iraq, in addition to talk of US military crowds on the Iraqi-Syrian border, and speculation was about the possibility of Washington launching military attacks against some armed factions, before Baghdad and Washington denied these rumbs.
Nineveh disaster
At the beginning of September, the province of Kirkuk witnessed a bloody night after the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which is controlled by the security forces since 2017, tried to demand its return, but Arab and Turkmen objections prevented this, and the crisis ended with the death of 4 elements of the party’s supporters during a confrontation with the security forces in front of the headquarters, and the crisis ended later after the Democratic Party dedicated its headquarters to the University of Kirkuk.
By the end of September, a tragic incident shook the country’s feelings after a massive fire broke out in the {Al-Haytham} event hall in Al-Hamdaniyah province in Nineveh Governorate, killing at least 120 people, and infecting dozens of burns and serious injuries.
The repercussions of Gaza and the return of the bombing
In October, everything in Iraq seemed to be subject to security escalation as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict entered a new phase of the conflict in Gaza, and with the state of the Iraqi geographical distance relative to the conflict area there; with the return of rocket attacks by armed factions on areas and camps where US forces are located in Iraq and Syria in response to the announcement of the US side of its support for Israel in its aggression on Gaza and the killing of civilians.
Halabousi isolation
Last November, the Federal Supreme Court decided to terminate the membership of Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi from the House of Representatives, against the backdrop of a lawsuit filed by former MP Laith Al-Dulaimi, accusing Halabousi of rigging the resignation of Al-Dulaimi and pushing him to sign a white paper, in addition to accusing Al-Halbousi of cooperating with Israeli parties to pave the way for the normalization of Iraq with Israel, which Al-Halbousi denied.
The position of the Presidency of the House of Representatives has remained vacant so far for the lack of political consensus on the candidates.
On the 16th of the month, the Federal Supreme Court rejected the lawsuit of the Cardinal Prosecutor Mar Louis-Raphael I Sako, Patriarch of Babylon, against the Chaldeans in Iraq and the world and confirmed the legality of the Republican Decree by invalidizing his appointment.
provincial elections
The local elections are perhaps the most prominent event that concludes in 2023 after the Iraqis cast their votes on December 18 in local elections that have been suspended since 2013 and for the first time in the province of Kirkuk since 2005 and excluded the provinces of the Kurdistan region scheduled for the first quarter of the new year 2024.
The forces of the coordination framework, sporadically in these elections, which witnessed a 41% participation according to the Electoral Commission, achieved a wide victory by obtaining 101 seats in all governorates out of 285 seats.
On the future of Iraq in 2024, analysts believe that it will be a year of economic and political stability, especially after the passage and launch of the budget, which includes billions of dollars, and therefore this will be reflected positively on political and security stability, and the launch of local elections, and the election of governors and provincial councils, may give strength and expansion of projects within the provinces.
On the security side, they see that the security situation will be more stable, especially after the arrest of the attackers of American bases, and these are all positive indicators that the Iraqi government does not flame, but diagnose and show seriousness in maintaining security and stability.”
With regard to the security of the Kurdistan region, analysts believe that the region will witness qualitative stability, because the stability of Baghdad supports the stability of Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, especially after the start of elections in Kirkuk, which will contribute to resolving the Kurdish-Kurdish, Shiite-Kurdish, and Arab-Kurdish conflict, and that all indicators confirm that 2024 will witness more stability than in the past years.
