14 October 2022; MEMO: Iraq's parliament yesterday elected Kurdish politician Abdul Latif Rashid as president. He then immediately named Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani prime minister-designate, ending a year of deadlock after a national election in October last year, Reuters reports.
The presidency, traditionally occupied by a Kurd, is a largely ceremonial position, but the vote for Rashid was a key step toward forming a new government, which politicians have failed to do since the election.
Rashid, 78, was the Iraqi minister of water resources from 2003-2010. The British-educated engineer won against former President Barham Salih, who was running for a second term.
He invited Al-Sudani, the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc known as the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-aligned factions, to form a government. fifty-two-year-old Al-Sudani previously served as Iraq's human rights minister as well as minister of labour and social affairs.
Al-Sudani now has 30 days to form a cabinet and present it to parliament for approval.
Yesterday's vote, which was the fourth attempt to elect a president this year, took place shortly after nine rockets landed around the Iraqi capital's Green Zone, according to a military statement.
At least ten people, including members of the security forces, were injured in the attack, according to security and medical sources.
Similar attacks took place last month as the parliament was holding a vote to confirm its speaker.
The parliament session came a year after an election in which populist Shia Muslim cleric Moqtada Al-Sadr was the biggest winner but failed to rally support to form a government.
Al-Sadr withdrew his 73 lawmakers in August and said he would quit politics, prompting the worst violence in Baghdad for years when his loyalists stormed a government palace and fought rival Shia groups, most of them backed by Iran and with armed wings.
Al-Sadr, who has not declared his next move, has a track record of radical action, including fighting US forces, quitting cabinets and protesting against governments. Many fear protests by his supporters.
Security personnel had deployed checkpoints across the city, closed off bridges and squares and erected walls across some of the bridges leading to the fortified Green Zone yesterday.
"Now Iran-backed groups are dominating the parliament, they have a friendly judiciary and have dominated the executive [authority]…they will need to benefit from it, one way to benefit from it is to do it gradually or suddenly and try marginalise or expel pro-Sadrists from the state apparatuses," said Hamdi Malik, specialist on Iraq's Shia militias at the Washington Institute, adding the approach on how they do it will determine how Al-Sadr will react.
Under a power-sharing system designed to avoid sectarian conflict, Iraq's president is a Kurd, its prime minister a Shia and its parliament speaker a Sunni.
