Iraq fails third time to elect new President

The Iraqi Parliament on Wednesday failed for the third time to elect a new President after failing to reach a quorum amid ongoing political disputes…reports Asian Lite News

At the beginning of the session, the Speaker of the Council of Representatives (Parliament) announced that the quorum set at two-thirds of the house’s 329 members had not been achieved to elect the President, Xinhua news agency reported, citinag a statement by the Parliament’s media office.

The Parliament continued its regular session and adjourned it without giving a new date, the statement said.

Earlier, the Parliament set March 30 as the date for a new session to elect the President, with some 40 candidates competing for the post.

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The repeated failure to elect a new President came amid a political row among Shiite parties.

Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s Sadrist Movement has vowed to form a new national majority from the winning parties in the elections, after his followers took the lead with 73 seats out of 329-seat Parliament in the elections held on Oct. 10, 2021.

Al-Sadr’s pro-Iranian rivals and some other parties, however, want to form a consensus government to include all political blocs, as was the situation in the successive governments after 2003.