Protester killed in Basra as Iraqi lawmakers struggle to form government

BASRA - Iraqi lawmakers who met this week for the first time since a May election and are still struggling to form a new government, decided on Tuesday to put off their next meeting until Sept. 15, having failed to elect a parliament speaker.

Naming a speaker and two deputies is the first major step towards establishing a new government, with lawmakers still trying to determine which of competing blocs had the most seats.

An alliance backing Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi and a populist Shiite cleric has been competing with a rival bloc backed by Abadi's predecessor Nuri al-Maliki and an Iran-backed Shiite armed group.

After parliament met on Monday for the first time since the election, its temporary leader said it would remain in session until Tuesday. But lawmakers failed to reach a quorum on Tuesday and agreed to return in 11 days.

On Sunday, lawmakers backing Abadi and cleric Moqtada al-Sadr announced they had managed to form an alliance that would give them a majority bloc in parliament.

Hours later, however, a group led by Maliki and militia commander Hadi al-Amiri responded by saying it had formed its own alliance that would be the largest bloc. It said it had persuaded some lawmakers to defect from the rival bloc.

The power struggle reflects division within Iraq's Shiite majority and the competing influence of Iraq's two main allies, the United States and Iran, which despite being enemies on the wider regional stage both backed the Baghdad government in a 2014-2017 war against Islamic State.

Amiri and Maliki are Iran's two most prominent allies in Iraq, while Abadi is seen as the preferred candidate of the United States.

Sadr led an anti-American Shiite militia during Iraq's 2003-2011 U.S. occupation and sectarian civil war. He now campaigns against corruption and portrays himself as a nationalist who rejects both American and Iranian influence. 

Protester killed

Lawmakers' struggle to form a government is being exacerbated by the unrest in the south of Iraq, where a protester died and six more were wounded in clashes with security forces in Basra on Monday night, local health and security sources said.

Protesters threw petrol bombs cocktails and stones at security forces, who responded by firing shots into the air and tear gas, security sources said.

Hundreds of people had gathered near Basra's provincial government headquarters to press demands for better public services and an end corruption. The crowd averaged about 600-700 people at its peak, but thinned throughout the night.

Health sources said one protester died and six were taken to hospitals after sustaining injuries during the protests.

The local head of Iraq's Human Rights Commission, Mahdi al-Tamimi, called for an immediate investigation into the death of the protester named as Yasser Makki.

"We call on the Iraqi judiciary to open an immediate and urgent investigation into the killing of a demonstrator who was shot in the shoulder and subjected to electric shocks by security forces," Tamimi said in a statement.

Protests have swept cities in the long neglected south, Iraq's Shiite Muslim heartland, over electricity outages during the hot Iraqi summer, a lack of jobs and proper government services, and entrenched graft.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi suspended the electricity minister last month and said on Monday that his government had begun punishing those responsible for poor services in Basra, Iraq's second biggest city.

But public anger has swelled as politicians struggle to form a new government after an inconclusive parliamentary election in May. Iraq's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has expressed support for the protests.

On Friday, hundreds of protesters clashed with security forces in Basra as they tried to break into the provincial government headquarters. Chants from the crowd said the Iraqi government was no different to IS jihadists, that government proposed reforms are nothing but lies, that Iraq's political parties are corrupt and that security forces are killing civilians.