Viewers Corner News correspondent in Baghdad reported that the Iraqi members of parliament were unable to elect a new president on Monday as significant factions boycotted the parliament session. An electoral session requires a two-thirds quorum of the legislature’s 329 members. The vote on Monday was cancelled because members of the parliament, many of whom are affiliated with Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, refused to show up. Only 58 legislators attended. The failure to elect a president underscores significant differences among Iraq’s political factions, which have only deepened since the country’s parliament elections on October 10, the results of which were rejected by political organizations backed by Iran. Iraqi lawmakers have so far been unable to reach an agreement on a compromise candidate for the country’s top job, and Monday’s delay prompted fears of a presidential vacancy, which would prevent the nomination of a prime minister. Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi kept the session open without setting a new date for a presidential election because there was no quorum in parliament. After Iraq’s Supreme Court briefly suspended the candidacy of front-runner Hoshyar Zebari, whose presidential campaign is endorsed by al-Sadr, al-Sadr announced his boycott. The high court noted the renowned Kurdish lawmaker and former foreign minister’s pending corruption allegations. The charges against Zebari, which he was never found guilty of, come from his tenure as finance minister, when he was fired for alleged graft. According to Iraq’s post-war agreement, the president should be a member of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, the prime minister must be a Muslim Shiite, and the parliament speaker must be a Muslim Sunni. Sadr, who leads the largest parliamentary coalition with 73 members of parliament, declared the boycott on Saturday, and al-Halbousi, who leads a 51-seat bloc, followed suit on Sunday. The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which holds 31 seats in parliament, soon followed suit. The claims of corruption have been refuted by Zebari, who represents the KDP. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), led by outgoing President Barham Saleh, is the KDP’s main rival in Iraq.
Source: Viewers Corner News.