The Iraqi parliament elects Nizar Amidi as President of the Republic.
Shafaq News – Baghdad: The Iraqi parliament elected Nizar Amidi, the candidate of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, as the new president of the republic on Saturday.
Earlier today, the Iraqi parliament began its session to vote on a new president for the country, amid objections from some political forces due to the lack of consensus that usually precedes important and sensitive sessions.
The council failed to decide on the position in the first round of the session, as none of the four competing candidates achieved two-thirds of the votes. The council went to the second round, which was limited to Amidi and the independent candidate Muthanna Amin Nader, as they achieved the highest number of votes, with the exclusion of the candidates Fuad Hussein from the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and Abdullah Al-Ulayawi, who is also an independent candidate.
A correspondent for Shafaq News Agency said that Amidi received 227 votes, becoming the sixth president of the Republic of Iraq after 2003 and the fall of the Baath Party regime headed by the late President Saddam Hussein at the hands of the American forces and their allies.
With the election of the president, one of the most important constitutional steps is complete, pending the nomination by the Coordination Framework – as the largest bloc – of its candidate for prime minister, in order to begin forming the new federal government. This step should end the political deadlock that has plagued the country since the sixth parliamentary elections in late 2015.
Shafaq.com