ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi parliament will sit on Wednesday to vote for the legislature’s new speaker, a month after Mohammed al-Halbousi was ousted from the position and less than a week before provincial council elections.
Safwan Bashir Younis, secretary general of the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir that the parliament is scheduled to vote for a new speaker on Wednesday after a failed attempt to do so in late November.
“The number of candidates for the position is unclear and will be revealed on the day of the session,” Younis said.
If the lawmakers fail again to elect a new speaker, another vote will not take place until after Iraq’s provincial council elections, set for December 18.
The Iraqi Federal Supreme Court on November 14 ruled to revoke Halbousi’s parliamentary membership and end his tenure as speaker of parliament. The Sunni strongman was accused of forging the parliamentary resignation of another Sunni lawmaker in 2022 by changing the date on the document.
Under Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing system, the post of the parliament speaker is always reserved for the Sunnis, the prime minister position for the Shiites, and the presidency for the Kurds.
