The Iraqi parliament fails for the second time to elect a president
On Saturday, the Iraqi parliament failed, for the second time, to elect a president of the republic, against the backdrop of a boycott of a number of deputies and the failure to achieve the necessary quorum for the election, amid a continuous political crisis for months.
Six months after the early parliamentary elections in October 2021, Iraq is still without a new president, and therefore without a new prime minister to assume executive power.
The election session was postponed to Wednesday, March 30, according to the House of Representatives and an official source who preferred to remain anonymous, due to “the lack of a quorum of two-thirds of the members of the House,” after 126 deputies responded to the boycott call from the coordinating framework, the influential coalition that includes the bloc of former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the bloc Al-Fateh, which includes factions loyal to Iran.
Officially, 202 deputies participated in the session, especially from the coalition led by the Sadrist movement, which is 18 deputies less than the quorum of 220 necessary to start the election process.
This adds more complexity to the political track in the country, as the president of the republic must, within 15 days of his election, nominate a prime minister, usually the candidate of the largest coalition under the parliament.
Upon his nomination, the designated Head of Government shall have a month to compose it.
After the session, the Sunni parliament speaker, Muhammad al-Halbousi, said that "the failure to achieve a quorum for electing the president of the republic requires us to continue holding sessions until it is achieved."
The political path is often complex and long in Iraq due to severe divisions, multiple crises and the influence of powerful armed groups.
There are forty candidates for the presidency, but the actual competition is limited to two figures representing the two most prominent Kurdish parties: the current president since 2018, Barham Salih, the candidate of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and Reber Ahmed, the candidate of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.
It is assumed that the candidate gets the votes of two-thirds of the House of Representatives to win.
Since the country's first multiple elections in 2005 and organized after the US invasion that led to the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, the position of President of the Republic has traditionally been held by the Kurds, while the Shiites hold the prime ministership, and the Sunnis the House of Representatives.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan traditionally holds the presidency of the republic, in exchange for the Kurdistan Democratic Party taking over the presidency of the Kurdistan region, according to an agreement between the two parties.
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