‘Maliki plans to weaken government via no-vote confidence’

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) – The dismissed Finance Minister stated on Thursday that the no-confidence vote in the Iraqi parliament was ‘politically motivated.’

Hoshyar Zebari, former Iraqi Finance Minister, told Kurdistan24 in an interview that the session of the no-confidence vote was illegal and against the parliament’s rules and procedure.

On Wednesday, 158 members of parliament voted in favor of withdrawing confidence from the Iraqi Finance Minister, 77 voted against the measure while 14 abstained.

The no-confidence vote came after the parliament accused Minister Zebari of corruption. Zebari denied all the allegations, saying he has nothing to hide. The parliament has not published evidence to support the charges.

Zebari told Kurdistan24 that the decision to sack him has nothing to do with corruption, therefore he has already appealed the decision to the High Federal Court.  

“The no-confidence vote was politically motivated and this decision was made in the spirit of revenge to withdraw confidence from me,” Zebari added.

He accused the State of Law bloc in the parliament, which is led by the former PM Nuri al-Maliki, of being behind the no-confidence vote stating that “Maliki tries to weaken and fail the current cabinet led by PM Haider al-Abadi.”

Zebari, who played a key role in receiving a $5.34 billion loan from International Monetary Fund in July, added that the decision to fire the highest financial authority might affect the efforts to take loans and eventually will jeopardize the trust of the IMF.

Hoshyar Zebari had served as the Iraqi Foreign Minister from 2003 to 2014 and then in October 2014 he became the Finance Minister.

Editing by Ava Homa
(Kamaran Omer conducted the interview)