Opposition blocs request to hold session to elect Iraqi president in May

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An alliance of Iraqi and Kurdish opposition blocs on Sunday submitted a request to hold a session to elect Iraq’s new president in the first week of May as the country continues to suffers from a political deadlock months after the elections.

For the People Alliance, formed between the Kurdish New Generation party, Emtidad Movement, and ten independents “presented an initiative that includes collecting signatures to hold a session [to elect the president] on Saturday, May 7,” state media quoted head of the alliance Alaa al-Rikabi as saying. 

The session aims to “elect the president of the republic, find a political solution, complete the parliamentary committees and approve the budget law,” he added, while calling on all MPs to attend the session.

Squabbles between rival Shiite blocs, the Coordination Framework and the Sadrist movement, in the Iraqi parliament scuppered the legislature’s third attempt to elect a new president on March 30 after a majority of MPs from the Iran-backed Shiite parties boycotted the session. 

Under the Iraqi constitution, the president should be elected within 30 days of electing the parliamentary speaker and his deputies, a session that was held on January 9. The head of state determines the new prime minister who will be voted in by an absolute majority of MPs.

Rikabi warned the new Iraqi lawmakers who have “sworn to abide by constitutional duties, that the alliance will file a lawsuit against the lawmakers who obstruct parliamentary sessions,” noting that the alliance will abide by the constitution and call for the dissolving of the parliament and an early elections “in case the session fails to be held.”

According to the constitution, the parliament could dissolve itself and call new elections, only if at least a third of the MPs meet and present the proposal which must then be approved by a majority plus one.

Iraq’s political process has fallen into a constitutional gap after its deadline to elect a new president, April 6, expired.

While the Iraqi constitution gives a period of one month to the parliament to elect a new president once nominations are closed, it does not specify what happens in case the legislature fails to do so in the given period. A decision to reopen nominations shall only be permitted by the Iraqi Federal Supreme Court upon an official request from the parliament.

The primary candidates for the presidency are Kurdistan Democratic Party’s (KDP) Reber Ahmed, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan’s (PUK) incumbent Barham Salih.

While the political stalemate in Iraq is seen to be because of the PUK and the KDP disagreement on having a mutual candidate, Shiite parties are also broken into two, with the Sadrists calling for a national majority government that would exclude the Coordination Framework, and the framework insisting on a consensus government, a system that Iraq has abided by for years following the US invasion of the country in 2003.