Iraqi parliament fails to elect new president, await Kurdish blocs to present single candidate

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Iraqi Council of Representatives convened on Monday without being able to elect a new Iraqi president due to lack of quorum.

According to a statement from the Iraqi Parliament, electing a new president was top of the agenda for Monday’s session.

Bashir Haddad, the deputy speaker of the Iraqi Parliament, told Kurdistan 24 the session was adjourned due to a lack of quorum. He said the assembly would resume on Tuesday to finalize the presidency position.

“The parliament presidency has invited the Kurdish parties to meet, and encouraged them to agree on a single candidate for the Iraqi presidency,” Haddad added.

A high-level delegation from the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), headed by the party’s Vice President Nechirvan Barzani, is in Baghdad to meet with Iraqi political parties and politicians to support its candidate, Fuad Masum.

In a meeting with the KDP delegation, Ammar al-Hakim, head of the al-Hikma bloc, noted that the Iraqi president post does not represent one party. Hakim added that the new president should have good relations with both Erbil and Baghdad.

Meanwhile, the KDP Foreign Relations Office said in a tweet that the suspension of Monday’s session was “an indirect attempt by the MPs and political blocs to allow more time” for the Kurdistan Region’s representatives “to nominate a unified candidate as KDP has called for.”

Sources told Kurdistan 24 that parliament members from the State of Law Coalition, al-Fatih Coalition, Sunni’s National Front Coalition, as well as the KDP had boycotted the session.

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany