BAGHDAD: Iraq's prime minister said he would sue the president Monday in a desperate bid to cling to his job, deploying security forces across Baghdad even as violence raged in the north.
A defiant Nuri al-Maliki made his shock announcement after three days of US strikes against militants in the north of Iraq and in spite of mounting calls for him to step aside.
"Today I will file a formal complaint to the federal court against the president," Maliki said in an address broadcast on the stroke of midnight on state television.
He alleged that Iraq's, Kurdish veteran Fuad Masum, had violated the constitution twice, essentially by failing to designate him as the prime minister.
Masum theoretically had 15 days after his July 24 election to pick a prime minister.
Maliki's Shiite coalition won April polls comfortably but his standing has been undermined by a devastating militants offensive launched on June 9 that overran large swathes of Iraq.
The political process has also been complicated by a constitutional tussle on how to define the largest parliamentary bloc entitled to nominate a prime minister.
The 64-year-old premier had pledged in a 2011 AFP interview he would not seek a third term but he has since changed his mind despite flagging support from nearly all his erstwhile allies: the United States, Iran, Shiite clerics and even his Dawa party.
"The United States fully supports President Fuad Masum in his role as guarantor of the Iraqi Constitution," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said.
Comments
Comments are closed.