Regardless of the Kurdish agreement, the framework intends to decide on the position of President of the Republic and postpones the nomination of the Prime Minister.
The coordinating framework that includes the ruling Shiite political forces in Iraq intends to decide on the position of President of the Republic in the House of Representatives session scheduled to be held at the beginning of next week, whether or not an agreement is reached between the Kurdish forces, to whom this position has become their share, while the nomination of a candidate for the position of Prime Minister will be postponed until further notice due to the lack of agreement on this aspect.
Iraqi political parties are trying to alleviate the internal pressure they are under, especially after several months have passed since the legislative elections in late 2025 and their failure to form a new Iraqi government. Regional developments have added another layer of complexity to the scene, with security tensions escalating to unprecedented levels in the Middle East region.
In this regard, MP Jawad Rahim Al-Saadi, from the State Forces Alliance, told Shafaq News Agency that next Saturday’s session of the House of Representatives is dedicated to choosing the new President of the Republic of Iraq, stressing that, according to diplomatic and political custom, this position is allocated to the Kurdish forces, “specifically to the Patriotic Union,” as he put it.
After the Iraqi parliament elected its new speaker, who is from the Sunni component, it was the Kurds’ turn to present their candidate for the position of President of the Republic, which is from this component.
It has been customary for this position to go to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, but in the last two election cycles, the Kurdistan Democratic Party objected to this and began demanding that a candidate from its party assume this position, especially after it swept the elections with the highest number of votes in the two cycles in the Kurdistan Region.
Regarding the Kurds’ position on Saturday’s session, Al-Saadi confirmed, “If they agree, the agreed-upon candidate for the position of President of the Republic will be passed by them, and if that does not happen, the choice will be up to the members of the House of Representatives.”
At the end of 2025, Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani called for a change in the mechanism for electing the Iraqi president, which is the “quota of the Kurds,” while he submitted a proposal that stipulates that this position be held by a candidate chosen by the Kurdish parties and blocs, and not necessarily be exclusive to the two main parties in the region (the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan).
The issue of selecting a Kurdish candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Iraq, a position traditionally reserved for this component of Iraqi society, remains unresolved due to political disagreements and a lack of consensus between the two main parties in the Kurdistan Region.
After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in the spring of 2003 at the hands of American forces and their allies, the major political forces of the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis adopted a quota system in distributing positions for the three presidencies: the Prime Minister’s office, the Republic, and Parliament.
Regarding the candidate of the Coordination Framework for the position of Prime Minister, the MP from the “State Forces Alliance” indicated that there is no agreed-upon candidate within the framework at the present time, revealing that the framework will present its candidate after the election of the President of the Republic.
The Coordination Framework had officially nominated Maliki on January 24, a move that opened the door to negotiations to form the new government, but the process faltered as disagreements continued over the election of the President of the Republic, the constitutional entitlement that precedes assigning the candidate of the largest bloc to form the government.
Any future prime minister in Iraq will face challenges in managing the balance between Iranian influence and American pressure, as well as the issue of armed factions linked to Tehran.
Pressure on Maliki’s nomination increased after US President Donald Trump announced on January 27 that Washington would not continue to support Iraq if Maliki returned to the premiership, while Maliki later said he would welcome a decision to replace his nomination if it came from the coalition that nominated him.
An informed political source revealed to Shafaq News Agency at the beginning of March that the Coordination Framework had withdrawn its nomination of Maliki for the position of Prime Minister.
Shafaq.com