Election of president ends Iraq political stalemate

BAGHDAD — Iraq's parliament on Thursday elected Abdul Latif Rashid as president, and he immediately named Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister-designate.

The election of Rashid ended a year of deadlock after a national election in October last year.

In Thursday's session, Rashid received 162 votes in the second round of voting, defeating Barham Salih, who gained 99 votes, according to the media office of the parliament. Eight votes were considered invalid.

The newly elected Rashid was later sworn in as president, the country's fifth since 2003.

The 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 10 people, including members of the security forces, were injured in the attack, according to security and medical sources.

Thursday's parliamentary session comes a year after an election in which Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr was the biggest winner, but he failed to rally enough support to form a government.

Under a power-sharing system in Iraq since 2003, the presidency is reserved for the Kurds, the parliament speaker's post for the Sunnis, and the prime minister's for the Shiites.

Rashid, 78, is a veteran Kurdish politician born in the city of Sulaimaniyah in northeastern Iraq. He was the minister for water resources from September 2003 to December 2010.

He is an active member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, under the leadership of Jalal Talabani, who became Iraq's president in 2005.

Rashid was formerly a spokesperson for the PUK in Britain, where he received a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1968 from Liverpool University, a master's degree in 1972, and a doctorate in engineering from Manchester University in 1976.

After the parliamentary session, Rashid tasked al-Sudani with forming a new government as al-Sudani was nominated by the Coordination Framework, or CF, the largest parliamentary alliance and an umbrella group of Shiite parliamentary parties.

Al-Sudani will have 30 days to form the new government, according to the constitution.

Al-Sudani had served as minister for human rights from 2010 to 2014 and minister for labor and social affairs from 2014 to 2018.

Iraqi caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi congratulated al-Sudani, and wished him success in the task of forming a government.

Rashid's election as president comes as political tensions have been rising in the past months between al-Sadr's Sadrist Movement and its rivals in the CF alliance.

Al-Sadr had demanded that parliament be dissolved, for early elections to be held. That demand was rejected by the CF parties, which became the largest bloc after al-Sadr ordered his followers to withdraw from the parliament in June.

XINHUA—AGENCIES