(Adnkronos) – The Iraqi Parliament has postponed the vote for the election of the president, scheduled for today, to allow rival Kurdish groups to reach an agreement on a shared candidate. The official news agency Ina reported this, without indicating a new date.
The Speaker of Parliament, Haibat al-Halbussi, received requests from the two main Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), to postpone the vote to “allow more time for both sides” to reach an agreement.
By convention in Iraq, the prime minister is always a Shiite, the speaker of parliament a Sunni, while the presidency, a largely ceremonial role, goes to a Kurd. According to a tacit agreement between the two main Kurdish parties, the national presidency should go to a member of the PUK, while the presidency and regional government of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region are traditionally assigned to members of the KDP.
This time, however, the KDP has put forward its own candidate for the Iraqi presidency, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein. Once elected, the president will have 15 days to appoint a prime minister, a position expected to go to former premier Nouri al-Maliki.
