ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Iraqi parliament is set to convene on Thursday in the latest bid to elect the country's next president following a year of turmoil in the country's shattered political climate that evolved into armed clashes between rival Shiite forces, with the leading Kurdish parties in Baghdad having failed to agree on a single presidential pick.
Iraq's lawmakers are expected to meet in a session at 11 am to decide on which candidate will take the largely honorific post of the president. The main contestants for the race are fielded by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), with the KDP having put forth current Kurdistan Region's Interior Minister Reber Ahmed while the PUK backs incumbent Barham Salih for the role.
Iraq held snap parliamentary elections on October 10, 2021. However, over a year after snap elections were held, the parliament has on three occasions failed to elect a new president and has therefore been unable to form a new government.
Besides Salih and Ahmed, 78-year-old former water resources minister Latif Rashid, a former PUK official running as an independent, also has his eyes on the presidential post.
The KDP and PUK's decision to stick by their candidates and not agree on a single pick in Baghdad has greatly complicated efforts to elect the president.
"We make it clear to everyone that the official candidate of the PUK for the post of President of the Republic is Dr. Barham Salih," PUK spokesperson Soran Jamal Taher said on Wednesday, confirming his party's decision to back the incumbent president.
PUK leader Bafel Talabani called on parties of the pro-Iran Coordination Framework on Thursday to abide by the PUK's candidate and return their loyalty, as the PUK sided with the framework while the KDP was allied with their rival prominent cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Sunni blocs in a tripartite alliance before Sadr ordered his MPs to resign from the legislature.
"Dear brothers in the Coordination Framework and our other allies: We appeal to you on behalf of your brothers in the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, who have always stood with you in the most difficult and darkest of circumstances, to be as we promised to you," Talabani said. However, it remains to be seen if Thursday's session will meet the expected quorum, with multiple parties, including the Emtidad Movement which was created by Tishreen (October) protestors, announcing that their MPs will boycott the session.
"Despite the huge challenges this country is facing, the mentality dominating ruling oligarchs clearly tell us that no serious reform to be expected; only some patrons will grow more powerful than rivals by more competently extorting public resources and directing them for personal profit," Harith Hasan, an expert at the Lebanon-based Carnegie Middle East Center tweeted, describing Iraqi politics as "personalistic" and one vastly engulfed by personal differences.
Once the crisis-ridden country elects a president, he will then appoint a prime minister and task the premier with negotiating with different political fronts to form the government.
According to a long-standing customary agreement, the three main leadership positions in the Iraqi government are divided among Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis. Kurds get the presidency, Shiites get the premiership, and Sunnis get the parliamentary speaker. Among Kurds, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has held on to the presidency position since 2005.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and PUK for years abided by an agreement, more commonly identified as the strategic agreement, where the PUK would get the Iraqi president of their choice, and the KDP in return would get the presidency of the Kurdistan Region.
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