After a year of gridlock following a national election in October of last year, the Iraqi parliament on Thursday elected Kurdish politician Abdul Latif Rashid as president, who then selected Mohammed Shia al-Sudani as prime minister-designate.
Voting for Rashid was a significant step toward creating a new government, which lawmakers had failed to achieve since the election. The president, which is usually held by a Kurd, is primarily ceremonial.
The 78-year-old engineer Rashid served as Iraq’s minister of water resources between 2003 and 2010. He received his education in the United Kingdom.
Specifically, he extended an invitation to Sudani, the nominee of the largest parliamentary bloc known as the Coordination Framework, an alliance of Iran-aligned forces, to form a government.
Sudani has held the roles of human rights minister and labor and social affairs minister in Iraq in the past.
Rashid defeated Barham Salih, the incumbent president who had previously served two terms.
The military issued a statement saying that nine rockets had been fired toward the Green Zone in the Iraqi capital just before Thursday’s vote, making it the fourth attempt to elect a president this year.
According to security and medical officials, the incident injured at least ten persons, including members of the security forces. Last month, as parliament was voting to affirm its speaker, there were similar attacks.
This Thursday’s parliamentary session follows an election a year ago in which Shi’ite Muslim leader Moqtada al-Sadr received the most votes but was unable to establish a government with the backing of his constituents.
When Sadr announced in August that he was withdrawing his 73 MPs and leaving politics, his supporters attacked the government palace and fought other Shi’ite factions, most of whom were sponsored by Iran and had armed wings. This was the worst bloodshed in Baghdad in years.
While he has not yet announced his next course of action, Sadr has a history of radical action, including confronting U.S. soldiers, resigning from ministries, and demonstrating against governments. Protests by his fans are feared by many.
On Thursday, security forces constructed checkpoints across the city, sealed off bridges and squares, and built barriers across several bridges leading to the heavily guarded Green Zone.
Iraq has a Kurdish president, a Shi’ite prime minister, and a Sunni parliament speaker in order to avert sectarian strife through a power-sharing structure.
Iraqi Kurdistan’s two major parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) that nominated Rashid and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, fought it out for the presidency (PUK).
The election of Rashid has stoked fears of a return to the violence that ravaged the region in the 1990s when the KDP and PUK waged a bitter civil war.
There was insufficient time for the KDP and PUK to resolve their disagreements and settle on a single candidate.
