After several sessions held last week, the Iraqi parliament was unable to hold a full session of the quorum in order to vote on the fourth amendment to the electoral law, which included extending its term. The session was scheduled to be held on Saturday, as announced by a number of deputies who are called “loser members of parliament”, in order to ensure the presence of 165 deputies to pass the law. However, according to parliamentary sources, no more than 15 deputies were present in the parliament’s hall at the absence of Speaker Salim al-Jubouri, who sources said had traveled to Turkey on a short visit. First Deputy Speaker Hammam Hamoudi, who announced his rejection of the extension of the parliament’s term, was also absent from the session. According to political circles as well as the movement associated with political alliances, leaders of large blocs announced their refusal to extend the term, which shocked a large number of loser MPs of those blocs. In their last attempt, the MPs announced they had dropped extending the term from the parliament’s agenda on its last day. MP of State of Law Coalition Awatif Nemah indicated that the parliament failed in holding a session on Thursday to vote on the fourth amendment to the law of the elections because some blocs and political figures opposed the article on extending the term. The parliamentary legal committee worked to amend the proposed law by deleting the article on the extension of the work of parliament and kept articles on the manual vote counting, she explained. Nemah justified the insistence on holding the session and vote by saying that fraud levels were very high during the elections, and member of Commissioners Board Riyad al-Badran admitted there were over 800 thousand canceled cards in Baghdad representing 8 parliamentary seats. “We expect these eight seats that were canceled were of the State of Law Coalition, and by announcing them again, will have a significant impact on the size of the blocs after the total manual counting and sorting,” she added. Fatah Alliance led by Hadi al-Amiri denied allegations claiming they withdrew from their coalition with Saeroon, backed by the leader of Sadrist movement Moqtada al-Sadr. Fatah spokesman, Ahmad al-Asadi, denied in a statement on Saturday reports of some news agencies and media outlets claiming they withdrew from the alliance, stressing both Fatah and Saeroon will continue with their meetings and joint committees to discuss practical steps to ensure the success of their joint project. On the other hand, Anbar MP Mohammed al-Karbouli told Asharq al-Awsat Sunni leaders from various blocs said Iraq’s Sunni movement aims at forming a unified Sunni bloc whose goal is not to merely “participate in the upcoming government,” but to participate in Baghdad’s political decision-making. He pointed out that “the new Sunni alliance includes more than 45 deputies from all the Sunni blocs Speaking to Asharq al-Awsat, independent politician Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie explained that after elections, Shiite parties were keen to form alliance in an attempt to bring together the remaining Shiite bloc, which means reforming the Shiite National Alliance once again. Sumaidaie went on to say that there are no signs of a bigger bloc yet, given that alliances are not united yet, and nothing has been developed. In addition, Sumaidaie indicated that establishing a Sunni alliance depends on many things, namely the fact that some political forces handle this as a “political business” and nothing more, which can not lead to the formation of a solid political framework.