Huda Jassim (Baghdad)
Yesterday, Iraqi parliament deputies elected a new president of the republic, who was appointed as prime minister, in conjunction with missile strikes on the Green Zone in central Baghdad, after a year of crisis and political stagnation punctuated by violence.
The new president of Iraq is the settlement candidate Abdul Latif Rashid, 78, who is interested in environmental issues. Rashid won against former President Barham Salih, who was seeking to win a second term in office.
After Rashid’s election, he directly assigned 52-year-old Muhammad Shia Al-Sudani to form a new government to succeed the government of Mustafa Al-Kazemi, and he will have 30 days, as required by the constitution.
Al-Sudani expressed his hope that the government will be formed “as soon as possible.” Al-Sudani was nominated for this position by the “Coordination Framework”, which includes several blocs, including the rule of law led by former Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Since the legislative elections on October 10, 2021, the influential political parties have not been able to agree on the name of a new president of the republic and the appointment of a new prime minister, despite numerous negotiations between them.
At the core of the crisis is the dispute between the “Sadr movement” on the one hand, and the “coordinating framework”.
In a reflection of the state of tension, the Green Zone, which includes government institutions and foreign embassies, as well as neighboring neighborhoods, was bombed by nine Katyusha rockets, prior to yesterday’s session, which no party claimed.
According to a security source, 10 people were wounded in these strikes, which were not claimed by any party, including 6 security personnel, and 4 civilians who were hit by a missile that fell in a neighborhood adjacent to the Green Zone.
The US ambassador in Baghdad, Alina Romanovsky, condemned the bombing, calling on the Iraqis to “find solutions to their political differences and achieve their demands through peaceful means only,” adding that “such attacks undermine democracy and besiege Iraq in a permanent cycle of violence.”
But these strikes did not prevent the election of a president yesterday, a largely ceremonial position reserved for the Kurdish minority, after three previous failed attempts.
After a second round of voting, Rashid was elected the former Minister of Water Resources, who belongs to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main parties representing the Kurdish minority, with 162 deputies, compared to 99 votes for his rival, the outgoing president, Barham Salih.
Yesterday, the French embassy in Baghdad welcomed what it described as “a democratic step that makes it possible to start forming a full government, which the country urgently needs.”
The presidency has been a subject of contention in recent months, and the position is usually held by a figure from the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, while the Kurdistan Democratic Party, in turn, runs the autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.
But the KDP was also seeking the presidency and rejected the name of Barham Salih, the current president who was also a candidate. The KDP eventually agreed to vote for Abdul Latif Rashid, party official Bankin Rekani told AFP.
Rikani said: “We accepted the compromise candidate and withdrew our candidate as a contribution from the Kurdistan Democratic Party in addressing the political closure.”
The coordinating framework currently has the largest bloc in parliament, with 138 deputies, according to the official in the framework, Ahmed al-Asadi, after the sudden withdrawal of the Sadrist movement’s 73 deputies from parliament.
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