ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A veteran Sunni politician appears poised to become the next speaker of Iraq’s parliament in a vote on Saturday, half a year after the post was vacated.
Multiple rounds of voting to elect a new speaker to replace Mohammed al-Halbousi, who was removed from the post six months ago, have so far proven futile but a general consensus seems to have finally been reached around Mahmoud al-Mashhadani.
“Tomorrow on Saturday, most of the parties of the Coordination Framework will vote for Mahmoud al-Mashhadani as speaker of the Iraqi parliament,” Firas al-Muslimawi, an Iraqi member of parliament from the State of Law Coalition, told Rudaw on Friday.
Muslimawi said that the Taqadum party - the largest Sunni bloc - will vote for Mashhadani.
“We have information confirming that the Kurdistan Democratic Party [KDP] will also elect Mashhadani,” he noted.
In November, Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court ruled to revoke Halbousi’s parliamentary membership and end his tenure as speaker. The Sunni strongman was accused of forging the resignation of another Sunni lawmaker in 2022 by changing the date on the document.
The legislature attempted to vote on a new speaker on January 13, but after repeated delays no candidate was able to obtain an absolute majority, pushing the vote into a second round that was never held. Taqadum’s Shaalan al-Karim and Sunni Sovereignty bloc’s Salem al-Issawi received the highest number of votes in the first round.
Mashhadani, who was the parliamentary speaker from 2006 to 2008, was also a candidate in January’s vote.
“Mashhadani has previous experience and the ability to manage the parliament, in addition to his advantages in terms of integrity, competence, and patriotism that he maintained through previous stances he took regarding Iraqi national issues,” Muslimawi said.
In April, Karim withdrew from the race due to opposition from Shiite blocs in the parliament.
The Coordination Framework, the largest bloc in the Iraqi parliament, earlier this month called on the Sunnis to fill the speaker position within a week. The Framework echoed their remarks on Friday, calling on MPs to vote on a new speaker to “resolve a national entitlement.”
Under Iraq’s sectarian power-sharing system, the post of parliament speaker is always reserved for the Sunnis, the prime minister position for the Shiites, and the presidency for the Kurds.
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