Iraq's parliament is expected to elect a new president on Tuesday, amid deep political divisions within the minority Kurdish community from which candidates are traditionally drawn.
The vote is a key step towards forming a new government after November's general elections.
Last month, the parliament held its first session and elected Sunni politician Haibat Al Halbousi as Speaker, setting off a 30-day deadline to vote for a president in what has historically been a gruelling process of forming a government.
The parliamentary election was the country’s sixth since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 US-led invasion.
Under an agreement reached in the post-Saddam order between the political parties, the presidential post is reserved for a Kurd, while the parliament speaker must be a Sunni and the prime minister a Shiite.
A separate arrangement by the ruling Kurdish parties has seen the presidency typically go to a candidate nominated by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), while leadership of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region is held by its rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).
Once elected, the president will have 15 days to order the leader of the largest parliamentary bloc to form a cabinet
There is still no agreement between the KDP and PUK on a candidate for the post. Political wrangling between the two parties has delayed the formation of the Kurdistan Regional Government following the October 2024 local parliament elections.
Each has endorsed a candidate. The PUK has put forward Nizar Amedi, former Iraqi minister of environment, while the KDP supports Iraq’s Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein.
The Co-ordination Framework, the largest Shiite parliamentary bloc, said it met representatives of the two parties separately late on Monday and “listened to the views of the two guest delegations, calling for an agreement facilitates the election of the President”.
It emphasised the “need to respect” the timelines stipulated by the constitution.
Mr Hussein told the Kurdish media outlet Rudaw that the vote session had been postponed to Sunday. However, the parliament issued a statement, saying it “will be held as scheduled”.
The two candidates are part of a list of 19 eligible for the post, drawn from a broader list of more than 40 names including Kurdish politicians as well as independents. Among them is current President, Abdul Latif Rashid, who was endorsed by the KDP in 2021.
Many Iraqis who have put their names forward for the presidency know they have almost no chance of winning, but want to protest against the entrenched system of distributing posts based on ethnicity, sect and political affiliation, a system critics say perpetuates corruption, inefficiency and sectarianism.
