Iraq's parliament postponed a session to elect the country's next president on Tuesday because of differences between the two main political parties of the minority Kurdish community from which candidates are traditionally drawn.
The vote is an important step towards forming a government after November's general election.
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 typically been a gruelling process of forming a government. That session was held on December 15.
The November election was the country’s sixth since the fall of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 US-led invasion.
Under an agreement between the political parties in the post-Saddam order, 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 among the Kurdish parties means the presidency typically goes 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).
There is still no agreement between the KDP and PUK on a candidate for the post. 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.
Both parties submitted a request to Mr Al Halbousi to postpone Tuesday's session to “allow more time for understanding and agreement”, according to a statement from the Speaker's office. No date has been announced for the next session.
The Reconstruction and Development parliamentary bloc, which is led by Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani and controls 46 seats in the 329-seat legislative body, submitted a request to postpone the session to respect the constitutional deadlines.
Lawmaker Bahaa Al Araji, who leads the bloc inside parliament, warned in a press conference that "delaying the session will affect the timeline for forming the new government."
The Sadiqoun Bloc led by militia leader Qais Al Khazali with 27 seats echoed the same stance. "Disrupting constitutional entitlements harms state institutions," Uday Awad, who heads the bloc, told reporters.
Once elected, the president has 15 days to order the leader of the largest parliamentary bloc to form a cabinet.
Political wrangling between the PUK and KDP has also delayed the formation of the Kurdistan Regional Government following the October 2024 local parliament elections.
Mr Hussein told the Kurdish media outlet Rudaw earlier that the session to elect a president had been postponed to Sunday. However, the parliament issued a statement to say it “will be held as scheduled”.
The Co-ordination Framework, the largest Shiite parliamentary bloc, said it met representatives of the PUK and KDP separately late on Monday and “listened to the views of the two guest delegations, calling for an agreement that facilitates the election of the President”.
It emphasised the “need to respect” the timelines stipulated by the constitution.
Mr Hussein and Mr Amedi are among 19 candidates 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 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, which critics say perpetuates corruption, inefficiency and sectarianism.
A two-thirds majority inside the parliament is needed to win the post. If no candidate is elected in the first round, the competition will be between the two candidates with the most votes, and the candidate who receives a simple majority wins in the second round.
