Iraqi parliament fails again to elect new president after session boycotted

Iraq has once again failed to elect a new president due to a lack of quorum in the parliament, prolonging a bitter deadlock in Iraqi politics months after a general election considerably changed the make-up of the parliament.

At least two-thirds of the house’s 329 members were needed to elect a new president for the mostly ceremonial post, but only 202 lawmakers were present at the Saturday session while 126 members boycotted the poll, according to Reuters.

The Iraqi parliament had issued a final list of 40 candidates for the post, which is reserved for a member of Iraq’s Kurdish minority.

The contest pits the incumbent, Barham Saleh, who is a member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), against Rebar Ahmed of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the PUK’s rival.

An alliance led by cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, which won the October election, threw its weight behind Ahmed after its first pick, KDP-backed veteran politician Hoshyar Zebari, was banned from running by Iraq’s Supreme Court due to a complaint filed against him over corruption charges.

“It is a storm in a cup. Today is a good proof that the party that had claimed that it has the majority had failed to achieve it. It is a bad situation getting worse,” said Farhad Alaaldin, chairman of the Iraq Advisory Council, a policy research institute.

The vote to elect the president was postponed to Wednesday. The first vote on February 7 was also widely boycotted and failed to elect the president.

Iraq’s parliament fails to elect new president due to lack of quorum, postpones vote indefinitely

The parliament failed to hold a session to vote on a new president amid political disputes.

In the meantime, the current caretaker government will continue to run the Arab country until the formation of a new government.

Under a power-sharing system, Iraq’s president is a Kurd, its prime minister a Shia, and its parliament speaker a Sunni.

Iraqi parliamentary elections were held on October 10 last year, the fifth in Iraq since the US-led invasion of the Arab country in 2003.

They were originally planned to be held in 2022, but the date was brought forward in the wake of a mass protest movement that broke out in 2019 to call for economic reforms, better public services, and an effective fight against unemployment and corruption in state institutions.

The Fatah (Conquest) Alliance – the political arm of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) resistance coalition – managed to secure 17 seats, compared to the 48 it held in the outgoing parliament.

Former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s State of Law Alliance won 33 seats, while al-Sadr’s Sairoon coalition, Fatah’s biggest rival, won 73 seats, compared to its previous 54 seats, making his party the first bloc in parliament, and thus giving him considerable influence in forming a government.

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