BASRAH PC MEMBER ON OPTIONS TO OUSTING THE GOVERNOR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BASRAH 000085

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 5/27/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM IZ
SUBJECT: BASRAH PC MEMBER ON OPTIONS TO OUSTING THE GOVERNOR

REF: A) BASRAH 65, B) BASRAH 59, C) BASRAH 58

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CLASSIFIED BY: Mark Marrano, DEPUTY REGIONAL COORDINATOR, REO
BASRAH, DEPARTMENT OF STATE.
REASON: 1.4 (b),(d)




1. (C) Summary: On May 25, the Basrah Deputy Regional
Coordinator (DRC) and Poloff met with Munathil Abd Khanjar,
Basrah Provincial Council (BPC) member. He described a number
of options the BPC was considering as alternatives to removing
the Governor. The BPC's efforts to brainstorm up alternative
solutions to Basrah's governance crisis are commendable, but in
the end, the BPC will most likely wait for the provincial
election to solve their problems for them. End Summary.


2. In a meeting with the Basrah DRC and PolOff, BPC member
Munathil, head of the Economic Committee and a prominent member
of the Basrah Islamic List (BIL) coalition of independent Shia
politicians, described efforts to oust Governor Mohammed Al
Wahili. With 18 out of 41 members on the BPC, the BIL has been
in the forefront of trying to muster the 28 votes necessary to
vote Governor Mohammed out of office (see Reftels).


3. (C) The DRC said that news of the Governor's imminent
removal from office had been circulating for quite some time,
with no result. The BPC needed to move forward and resolve the
issue of the Governor so it could address local governance
issues. The DRC said he had been disappointed to hear that the
weekly Wednesday BPC meeting had not taken place on May 24
(Comment: The May 24 meeting was to have finally brought the
issue of removing the governor to vote. Fadillah party members
were absent from the meeting, as was the BPC Chairman Obadi of
the Da'awa Party. End Comment).


4. (C) Munathil agreed, but said that the 28 votes needed to
remove the Governor from office did not exist. While all 18 BIL
members were in agreement to vote against the governor, Munathil
said that he did not believe the other party members would
follow through on their promises to vote against the governor.
There was a high level of distrust between the BIL and other BPC
members, and the BIL had no confidence that the other members
would vote against the Governor.


5. (C) Another sticking point was that there was no consensus
on who would replace the governor, Munathil said. Some BPC
members supported the approach of allowing the Fadillah party to
replace Governor Mohammed with another of its party members.
Others said that anyone should be allowed to be considered for
the governorship as long as all BPC members agreed on this
person. Munathil said, interestingly, that although there were
qualified independents on the BPC who would do a good job as
governor, they were out of consideration because they had no
supporting militia. With no consensus on how to replace the
governor, the discussion was going nowhere.

A Range of Other Options
--------------


6. (C) Munathil said that other options were being discussed if
the Governor could not be voted out. One idea was to create an
oversight committee formed of representatives from each of the
five major parties on the BPC (Fadillah, SCIRI, BIL, Iraq Future
Gathering, and Iraqi National Accord). These five members would
monitor the governor's performance and make recommendations to
the rest of the BPC. The political parties would be influenced
by the recommendations of their representative on this
committee, and this in turn would affect the governor's
behavior.


7. (C) Another option involved allowing the governor to retain
his position, but replacing both the Deputy Governor and the BPC
Chairman. This would provide a better balance of power between
the political parties and remove much of the Governor's
influence over the BPC. Munathil said his name had been
submitted as a possible replacement for one of these two
positions.


8. (C) A third option under discussion was simply to wait for
the provincial election. Some BPC members were unwilling to
waste effort on replacing the governor when the election would
take place shortly and resolve the problem peacefully. When
asked when he thought the election would take place, Munathil
replied that he thought it would be in August or September 2006
(Comment: This early time frame seems overly optimistic to us.
End Comment).


9. (C) Comment: It is becoming increasingly clear that the BPC
does not have the political will to vote out the governor, and
it was refreshing to hear a range of options that the BPC was
considering in order to address the problem of Governor

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Mohammed's abuse of office. While the third option of replacing
both the Chairman and the Deputy Governor would probably provide
the best mitigating effect on the Governor, we suspect that it
would be as difficult for the BPC to agree on alternative
candidates for these two positions as it has been on a
replacement for the governor. An oversight committee is not a
bad idea, but it will take a long time to form and its influence
over the governor is far from clear. In the end, the provincial
election will decide who stays and who goes in the BPC, and the
sooner the better. End comment.
MARRANO