Commentary: Zaidi's First Week Exposes Iraq's Structural Political Dysfunction

A May 22 analysis in The National argued that PM Zaidi's first week in office had demonstrated, rather than resolved, Iraq's structural political dysfunction. Zaidi's government — with nine of 23 ministries still unfilled, the KRG in a fresh budget crisis, and the PMF's political wings refusing to commit to cabinet participation — was governing in a continued crisis mode that successive Iraqi prime ministers had all experienced. The analysis noted three specific failure indicators in the first week: Zaidi's finance ministry could not transfer KRG salaries without triggering a constitutional dispute over the gas contracts; his security apparatus had no interior minister to respond to the KH terrorism charges; and the incoming government's first major engagement with Washington — the KH synagogue plot indictment — required a response that simultaneously satisfied US demands for condemnation and PMF partners' demands for solidarity. The commentary argued that Iraq's political system, built on the muhasasa sectarian quota framework after 2003, structurally prevents any prime minister from being a reformer regardless of personal intentions. KRG PM Barzani meanwhile publicly described dialogue with Baghdad as 'good,' signaling his intention to resolve the salary dispute through negotiation rather than confrontation.