Iraqi Parliament to meet for reopening door for new presidential candidates
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - The Iraqi Parliament announced on Wednesday that it will hold a session on Saturday to reopen the door for political parties to submit the names of new candidates for the Iraqi presidency.
The parliament released the agenda of a session it will hold on Saturday. It consists of two items.
The first item is a vote among the parliament members on the decision to reopen the door for new presidential candidates.
The second item is to form the parliament's permanent committees.
Iraq's Federal Supreme Court (FSC) ruled on Tuesday that the parliament's recent decision on submitting new presidential candidates was unconstitutional.
The court specified that it would have been constitutional if parliament members had decided to reopen the door. However, it is not constitutional if the presidency of the parliament decides to do so by itself.
With the support of its Shiite and Sunni allies, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) is working to secure enough votes to pass the decision and nominate its new candidate Rebar Ahmad for the presidency position.
Ahmed, the Kurdistan Region's Minister of Interior, was nominated by the KDP for this position after the FSC disqualified its previous candidate Hoshyar Zebari.
On Feb. 13, the FSC terminated Zebari's, claiming that he does not meet the necessary conditions for the position.
Read More: Federal court rules against KDP candidate for Iraq presidency
"The parliament will meet soon to reopen the door for submitting new candidates for Iraq's presidency," Vian Sabri, head of the KDP parliamentary bloc, told Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday. "This type of decision only needs the attendance of 50+1 of the parliament members in the session, and the decision could be passed with the votes of 50+1 of the attendees, which is 84 members."
The KDP has enough votes to pass the decision on Saturday since its part of the tripartite coalition with the Shiite Sadrist Movement and Sunni Al-Siyada alliance. This coalition has a total of 177 parliament seats, which is way more than the number of votes needed to pass the decision.