The Iraqi parliament will not elect the President of the Republic today, as expected, due to the decision of the main parties to boycott the voting session. This was reported by Iraqi and pan-Arab media citing parliamentary and government sources in Baghdad.
In Iraq following the deposition of President Saddam Hussein in 2003, institutional offices are assigned on the basis of confessional and ethnic affiliation: the head of state must be a Kurd, while the president of parliament a Sunni and the head of government a Shiite. .
The presidential race presented 25 candidates but only two were described by analysts as the possible winners of the ballot: former minister Hoshyar Zebari supported by the Kurdistan Democratic Party dominated by the Barzani clan and close to Turkey; and outgoing rival and president Barham Saleh, candidate of the other traditional Kurdish political pole, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, dominated by the Talabani clan and close to Iran.
However, Zebari’s candidacy was “temporarily” suspended by the Iraqi court yesterday following allegations of “corruption” by some deputies.
But beyond the Zebari affair, the vote has been suspended because in the last few hours the party of the Shiite leader Moqtada Sadr, together with the party of the re-elected president of parliament, the Sunni Muhammad Halbusi, as well as the coalition of pro-Iranian armed parties , have announced that their deputies will not participate in the vote for the election of the president.
And this is because the main political parties, winners and losers from the disputed elections last October, have not yet found an agreement on the appointment of the premier and the formation of the government.
Slowing down the process of election of the head of state serves in fact to political leaders to extend de facto the constitutional deadlines for the formation of the executive: a month ago the parliament re-elected its president Halbusi, thus starting the countdown for the election of the head of state. Once elected, the latter will have a maximum of 15 days to indicate the new prime minister and instruct him to form the government.
(HANDLE).
Source: Ansa
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