Saleh Muhammed al-Mutlaq ( ar, صالح محمد المطلك; born 1 July 1947) is an Iraqi politician who is the head of the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, the fifth largest political list in Iraq's parliament. From 21 December 2010 to 11 August 2015, he was one of the three deputy prime ministers of Iraq.

Early life and education

Al-Mutlaq was born in

Fallujah Fallujah ( ar, ٱلْفَلُّوجَة, al-Fallūjah, Iraqi pronunciation: ) is a city in the Iraqi province of Al Anbar, located roughly west of Baghdad on the Euphrates. Fallujah dates from Babylonian times and was host to important Jew ...

into the Jubur Tribe on 1 July 1947. He attended school in Habbaniyah, and went on to graduate from the University of Baghdad in 1968. He later completed his PhD at the

University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen ( sco, University o' 'Aiberdeen; abbreviated as ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; gd, Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Sc ...

, graduating in 1974.

Politics

Mutlaq was an active member of the Ba'ath Party, but was expelled in 1977 after criticizing the government and insisting that 5 Shiite men accused of plotting against the state should receive a fair trial. Mutlaq then pursued a successful career in farming, before returning to politics after the

2003 invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

, being appointed to the committee tasked with writing a new constitution. Mutlaq however voted against the new constitution due to the provision which outlawed the Ba'ath Party. Mutlaq later joined the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, a Sunni Arab-led Iraqi political list formed to contest the December 2005 elections. The Front alleges it is not sectarian. Mutlaq told Al Arabiya television "The majority of the National Dialogue Council insists that the list is a national list that includes Iraqis from Al-Basrah to Al-Sulaymaniyyah." The Front platform calls an end to the presence of foreign troops and to rebuild government institutions. It also plans to focus on Iraq's economic and security problems. Its main components are the Iraqi National Front, the National Front for a Free and United Iraq and the Iraqi Christian Democratic Party of Minas. The Front performed relatively well in the December 2005 election, winning 11 seats, but complained of widespread electoral fraud and called for a re-run of the poll. Western observers and the United Nations said the poll was largely free and fair. According to

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and S ...

, Mutlaq wants all sects and ethnic groups to set aside their differences. Mutlaq was appointed as a Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq alongside

Hussain al-Shahristani Hussain Ibrahim Saleh al-Shahristani (born 1942) is an Iraqi politician who served in different cabinet posts, including as Iraq's Minister of Higher Education. Early life and education al-Shahristani was born in 1942 in Karbala, Iraq. He hail ...

under

Prime Minister of Iraq The prime minister of Iraq is the head of government of Iraq. On 27 October 2022, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani became the incumbent prime minister. History The prime minister was originally an appointed office, subsidiary to the head of state, a ...

Nouri al-Maliki Nouri Kamil Muhammad-Hasan al-Maliki ( ar, نوري المالكي; born 20 June 1950), also known as Jawad al-Maliki (), is secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party and was the prime minister of Iraq from 2006 to 2014 and the vice president ...

. He was reappointed as the Deputy Prime Minister alongside

Hoshyar Zebari Hoshyar Mahmud Mohammed Zebari, also simply known as Hoshyar Zebari (also spelled ''Hoshyar Zebari/Zibari'', Kurdish: ''Hişyar Zêbarî''; born 23 September 1953) is an Iraqi politician who formerly served as the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq in ...

and

Baha Araji Bahaa Araji ( ar, بهاء الاعرجي) is an Iraqi politician, who was a member of the Iraqi National Assembly until 2014. He served as Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Affairs from September 2014 to August 2015. He is a spokesman for th ...

under the government of new Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. He was removed from office on 11 August 2015 by the Iraqi parliament which also voted to remove the three posts of deputy prime ministers and vice presidents.

Personal life

Mutlaq and his family have been subjected to threats and violence, with his brother being kidnapped and murdered following the 2005 elections, and several of his bodyguards also having been murdered. As a result of this his wife and son live in Amman, Jordan.

References

External links

Iraqs Political Refugees in limbo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mutlaq, Saleh Living people 1947 births Members of the Council of Representatives of Iraq Iraqi National Dialogue Front politicians Government ministers of Iraq University of Baghdad alumni Alumni of the University of Aberdeen People from Fallujah