BAGHDAD, Iraq – The Iraqi parliament on Wednesday passed a vote of no-confidence against finance minister Hoshyar Zebari, voting in a secret ballot. Out of the 249 MPs who voted in the 328-seat parliament, 158 voted against him, 77 were in his favor and 14 abstained. Zebari, who is a Kurd, was finance minister since October 2014. Before that, the 62-year old veteran politician held the post of Iraq's foreign minister from 2005. Lawmakers, in particular from the Shiite Daawa Party, had accused Zebari of mismanaging the country's finances, which the minister denies. Last month, the former Iraqi defense minister, Khaled al-Obeidi, was ousted by lawmakers in a similar secret ballot criticized by Prime Minister Haider Abadi.
