BAGHDAD: On March 4, the Iraqi parliament completely disregarded the principle of consensus in place since 2003 and approved the general budget law by majority amid a Kurdish boycott and Shiite and Sunni objections to some sections.
The budget, which was supposed to be approved before the end of last year, cuts the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) share to 12.5% from 17%.
Kurdistan Democratic Party leader Massoud Barzani called the reduction “a clear violation of the principle of partnership.”
In addition, the budget did not include allocations to the Iraqi Kurdistan peshmerga or Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), which some critics said was unfair since those groups had helped defeat the Islamic State.
According to Mohsen Saadoun, a Kurdish Alliance member of parliament’s Legal Committee, the Kurdish parties are counting on Masum to veto the budget, or they will have to challenge the law before the Federal Supreme Court.
“The budget law had certain constitutional violations, namely sending the KRG’s budget to the four provinces of Kurdistan separately, instead of directly to the KRG government,” Saadoun said. “Reducing the KRG’s share was not based on any legal text or official census that can be relied on to determine population ratios.”
